


Marred by Poison, Purged by Magic

by Reiven



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood & Jace Wayland Friendship, Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, BAMF Alec Lightwood, BAMF Magnus Bane, Blood and Injury, F/M, Gen, Good Parent Luke Garroway, Hurt Magnus Bane, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magnus Bane & Catarina Loss Friendship, Major Character Injury, Post Episode: S02E20 Beside Still Water, Protective Alec Lightwood, Protective Clary Fray, Protective Isabelle Lightwood, Protective Jace Wayland, Raphael Santiago Has Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2018-12-20 23:30:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11931612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reiven/pseuds/Reiven
Summary: It was over. They’d won. Valentine was dead and the Downworld was safe once again.It was supposed to be over… so how did he end up there – barely able to keep himself conscious and upright even in the position he was in, groveling pathetically on his knees.It was supposed to be over, but instead Alexander was going to die. He was going to be ripped apart by the demon barreling towards him and Magnus could do nothing but watch helplessly as another person he loved died before his very eyes.





	1. Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was over. They’d won. Valentine was gone and the Downworld was safe once again.
> 
> It was supposed to be over…so how did he end up there—kneeling on the ground in some filthy alley, holding his lover in his arms, watching, almost numb, transfixed by the blood that was slowly seeping through his fingers, dripping down to pool at his knees on the cold, unyielding pavement.
> 
> It was supposed to be over, but Magnus was dying and Alec couldn’t do anything to save him.

There was blood on his hands, dripping through his fingers, staining the beds of his fingernails and pooling on the pavement like a molten red mirror. 

He wasn’t unused to blood— _there was so much of it_ —and he wasn’t unused to being drenched in it. Most of the time it was his and that was okay, because that came with the territory. He and his kind fought demons for a living and often times they got hurt, other times they got hurt badly and sometimes they died, but that was just part of the job.

But this blood—it wasn’t his, it had no place being on him, staining his clothes and saturating the pavement under his knees. It had no place being on anything other than inside a person’s body, _this_ person’s body, and yet it was leaking out the three deep, jagged wounds in his chest; wounds that had ripped through skin and muscle and tendon and torn through a lung. It was streaming out without stopping and seeping through his fingers and there was nothing Alec could do to stop it.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were supposed to be home, relaxing, holding hands and cuddling, trying to forget the bad memories of the past week and the feel of the cold lonely room and the bed that all of a sudden felt far too large and far too empty. Things happened in the past week that Alec wished he could forget, but in comparison, he’d relive that awful week over and over again for eternity if it meant that he could have avoided finding himself in that position:

Holding his lover close to his chest and trying to keep him conscious and trying to keep him from bleeding out in the darkness in that cold dark alley in the middle of the night; watching unsuspecting mundanes meander back and forth past the mouth of the alleyway without a care in the world, oblivious to the fact that someone was dying just a few feet away and one of the two people who loved him most in the world could do little more than beg him to stay conscious and to stay with him.

They were supposed to be home; they left the party for that sole reason. Valentine had been defeated, the traitors had been killed; annihilation of the Downworlders had been averted. Jace died but then he didn’t, and even though he kept saying that nothing happened out of the ordinary and that everything was alright, Alec knew something was definitely not right with him. But he’d give him the benefit of the doubt and confront him in a few days about it, and if that didn’t work; he'd have to do it the old fashioned way: by beating it out of him during sparring.

They’d made up; Alec had mustered up the courage to say everything he wanted to say and everything that was on his mind and he was prepared for Magnus to shut the proverbial door on him for the second time that day, but he hadn’t, if anything he’d opened it even wider than before and Alec couldn’t have been happier.

He didn’t tell anyone they were leaving, so no one would be out looking for them and his phone had been crushed in his pocket when he was sent flying into the wall. He could tell a couple of ribs were at least fractured, if not broken, but the blame of that was all on him, on his absent mindedness and his stupidity and his carelessness; just because one war had been averted, it didn’t mean that many more weren’t waiting just beyond the horizon, ready to take its place and he’d been caught out in the open, unprotected, without his bow, without his parabatai at his side; only one seraph blade to protect himself with and his warlock boyfriend at his side, who, despite his earlier statement, was only labouring at barely twenty percent strength.

“Should have had that steak beforehand,” Magnus had said, just as Alec drove his sword into a Shax demon’s back, eradicating it and in the same swipe took out two more that were coming at him from the side. 

Alec tried to force a smile at Magnus’s effort to lighten the situation, but he found himself unable to. 

Magnus’s magic was barely a red flicker in his palm, but still he was manipulating the air around him, his fingers almost dancing, obliterating the demons into ash with a flick of his wrist.

But Alec could already see the perspiration beading at his forehead and the way his breathing was becoming laboured and shallower. The way his movements were becoming less fluid and more hesitant and he could see the shudder that ran up his spine. Alec could see the way he tried to hide the way his hands were shaking in his effort to keep up his magic and utilize his power—Magnus has so much power and he used it all up to help them—and the only thing Alec could do was watch Magnus’s back and take out any demon that came within striking distance of him and Magnus.

He longed for his bow, and he’d stupidly let his guard down and ventured out into the city unarmed and unprotected and he’d put himself and Magnus in danger. If anything were to happen to Magnus, Alec would never be able to forgive himself.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind that he felt, rather than see the way the red swirling flames in Magnus’s palms started to sputter and fizzle out of existence before the warlock himself dropped to a knee, one shaking hand stretched in front of him, keeping him from tipping over onto the ground now saturated with demon ichor mixed with ash. His head bowed and his breath shuddering and laboured; his other hand hanging limp on his knee.

Alec could only call out his name, distress clear in his voice and his eyes desperately trying to look at Magnus to make sure he was okay, but he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off the hoard of demons still swarming them like locusts. He could only settle on taking out as many demons as he could, while desperately trying to fight his way closer to Magnus’s side.

Magnus’s voice was weak and trembling when he said, “Alexander, watch your back—I’m okay.”

But he didn’t sound okay and he didn’t seem okay and _that_ was the last thing Alec expected to happen when he woke up that morning. He expected to still be on bad terms with Magnus that day; he’d been prepared for it. Even Magnus’s cold indifference when he went to ask for help wasn’t unexpected, ultimately, it hurt, but he’d expected it.

What he hadn’t expected was to lose Jace without warning and to suddenly get him back.

He didn’t expect the night to end with him and Magnus walking back towards their apartment, hand-in-hand, with Magnus smiling up at him with his eyes sparkling, the way Alec remembered; the way he thought of fondly in his mind before he went to sleep at night alone in his too cold room at the institute. He hadn’t expected it, but it was a surprise that was more than welcome.

He hadn’t expected to be fighting a hoard of Shax demons by himself, with Magnus barely hanging on—his powers depleted because of _them_ , because he once again helped _them_ —without his weapons and without backup.

Frankly, Alec was _pissed_.

All of a sudden there was no pain; no aches in his joints and throbbing in his muscles from overexertion. There was no bone-deep tiredness or weariness. There wasn’t any fear or dread of what was to come. There was only the rush of blood pounding in his ears and the way his heartbeat was hammering in his chest. The surrounding sounds were muted; the glare of the streetlights in the distance was brightened. 

All his senses were heightened; he could hear the sounds of the Shax demons coming at him from behind, the sound of their footsteps scurrying across the walls and the ground. He could smell the stench of ichor mixed with curdled garbage in the dumpster at the other end. He could taste the bitter tang and ashy residue of the dead demons lingering in the air on his tongue. He could hear the sound of his own laboured breathing like it was being projected through a loudspeaker and all of a sudden the demons coming at him seemed like they were moving in slow motion.

He took the first and second demon closest to him out simply enough; with just a single strike right through the middle. The muscle joints in his shoulders were screaming at him but he was deaf to their suffering. He could only think of Magnus, in his mind he could only see Magnus kneeling on the ground, struggling to push himself to his feet but crumpling to the ground on his hands and knees in a frustrated cursing heap.

He took out the third, fourth and fifth demon without stopping for a breath. The burning feeling on the back of his head told him that Magnus had his eyes on him, his gaze undoubtedly intense and focused, because that’s the kind of person Magnus was under all the put on frivolity. He was also kind and beautiful and he had so much love to give for someone who lived through so much pain for so many years, and it only made Alec love him all that much more.

Magnus put himself on the line for them over and over again, and Alec wasn’t going to let him down in that moment when he needed the same in return. That was his promise as a Shadowhunter and as the Head of the Institute. That was his promise as someone who loved Magnus beyond words.

But the demons kept coming and whatever strength he’d managed to amass through his anger and his frustration and his fear, it was slowly running on empty. 

There was a mountain of ash at his feet and billowing in the air, he was drenched in ichor and sweat but the demons kept coming.

And all of a sudden, there was an inhuman roaring screech unlike anything he’d ever heard before, except that he had. He’d shot one down in the street just earlier that day and another one that almost got to Magnus before Magnus took it out while he was in the process of closing the singularity on the beach.

It came swooping out the sky like the embodiment of a nightmare; all talons and fangs, dripping with poison and leathery wings flapping in the wind. 

Alec could barely keep his hands up or the seraph blade clutched between his fingers, but he put himself between the Asmodei demon and Magnus and was ready to accept what was to come. 

He could hear Magnus screaming his name somewhere in his periphery but he couldn’t think of that, otherwise he’d get lost in the sound of Magnus’s voice. Instead he planted his feet and raised his blade and took stance; his eyes steely and his resolve stern and resolute. He needed to hold off the demons for as long as he could, he knew the institute would have detected the demonic presence by then; he just needed to hold them off until backup arrived. He knew there was a high chance that he wouldn’t walk out of that alleyway in one piece, or even at all, but that was his duty and he needed to uphold it. Deep down he wondered whether Jace would feel his loss as painful as he’d felt his. He wondered if Jace would mourn him as much in his heart as Alec did for those long, terrible minutes when he’d been a piece of Alec’s soul that had just been ripped away.

His family would mourn. Izzy would be devastated, but they were all Shadowhunters, they knew the risks that came with the job. They’d be sad and they’d grieve for him, but ultimately they’d accept that he went out doing what he did best, fighting demons and protecting those he cared about the most and that was enough for Alec.

Magnus would mourn; perhaps Magnus would mourn most of all because he’d been there to watch Alec die. It was a terrible prospect and pain he’d hoped to spare the warlock he loved so much, with a ferocity and a need he never knew he’d be able to love another man with. But he had and at the end, he was glad that it was Magnus.

Magnus was still yelling his name, sounding more and more distressed each time.

The demon was closing in. It was in the alleyway, gliding through the air, its large batwings folded up against its side and closing in fast on Alec’s position.

The only thing Alec could think about was that he was going to take that demon out even if it meant that the demon would take him out at the same time. He was prepared for it. His heart was no longer thundering inside his chest. At the end of everything, he was at peace.

What he wasn’t prepared for was the bellowing roar behind him and the flash of red that exploded like a beacon, illuminating the entire alley, showering him in blinding redness causing the demon to screech in agony. 

In the next moment, just as the demon came within a hair's width of his position, Alec could smell the rotting stench of its breath on his face; the taloned claw extended in front of it, aimed directly at Alec’s heart, all of a sudden he felt himself being lifted off his feet, the talons tearing through the material of his shirt, scratching the upper layer of the skin on his chest. He managed to jab his blade forward but didn’t have time to see whether it found its mark before it was again flying through the air, out of harm’s way. He hit the wall hard and with no protection or a chance to shield himself and dropped to the ground in a heap.

In the back of his fuzzy mind, unable to focus on anything besides the blinding pain that exploded through his body, he heard the demon’s screeching, the thump of a body colliding into another and the sound of a sharp, painful inhale, followed immediately by the sound of stones cracking and crumbling as the bodies crashed into the wall at the opposite end of the alley.

He struggled to clear his mind and to will the pain away. He didn’t know where his stele was, he lost track of it early on in the battle so there was no way to apply an iratze.

There were a few broken ribs, he could tell almost immediately and he knew he’d definitely done something unfavourable to his collarbone and shoulder, but all that had to wait. He pushed himself up into a sitting position to find where the demon had landed, or to find Magnus, but his eyes scanned the immediate surrounding area and found neither.

His heart had begun pounding against his ribcage once again which didn’t help the agony in his chest and he struggled through his lungs being unable to expand properly to inhale the breath he needed to call out Magnus’s name.

The sound of his voice was barely a whisper and it was agonizing, but there was no answer. 

The first thing he noticed was that there was not one demon in sight anymore, as if they’d all scurried off even though it would have been the most opportune time for them to attack. It wasn’t a demon’s modus operandi to coordinate their attacks, but this was starting to seem more and more like one. 

Alec attempted to regulate his breathing, trying not to let his spots in his vision from the lack of oxygen get to him. Breathing was hard, moving was hard, trying not to give into the alluring arms of unconsciousness was hard. But it wasn’t as hard as not knowing where Magnus was or whether he was alright, so Alec persevered. He pushed himself to his feet, swaying more than standing when he finally got himself upright, using the broken wall behind him for leverage as he attempted to steady himself.

He took one painfully slow step after another, putting one foot ahead of the other, painfully and slowly, trying not to pass out when the dark spots blinded his vision momentarily and the sound of his own heartbeat started pounding in his ear.

He needed to find Magnus. He needed to get to Magnus.

That was the mantra he chanted to himself to keep himself moving. 

The mouth of the alley was empty except for a few mundanes that periodically walked past, so instead Alec turned his blurry gaze towards the opposite end.

The sight stilled him where he stood.

Standing among a large pile of still smoking ash with his seraph blade lying flat on its side right in the middle of smouldering heap, leaning heavily against the wall, panting, was Magnus.

He was breathing. That was the first thing Alec noticed.

The second thing Alec noticed was the blood pooling at his feet and the ripples in the mesmerizing red liquid from the blood still streaming down his left arm.

Magnus’s eyes were barely open, but the moment he noticed the presence of the person standing against the backdrop of the light from a lamp post in the street, he lifted his head up and smiled a relieved smile when he registered the familiar face.

“ _Alex_ —” he started but was unable to finish the name when he pitched forward, his legs no longer able to keep him upright, his smile dropping with his slow and painful descent.

With the absolute last bit of energy he could muster, Alec rushed forward, catching Magnus in his arms just before he could land with his entire weight on the hard, unyielding pavement. Magnus let out a painful groan when his chest landed squarely on Alec’s outstretched arm. It wasn’t a sound Alec had ever heard coming from Magnus and it wasn’t a sound he ever wanted to hear coming from him again.

He bit his lip when he slowly turned Magnus onto his back, still holding him tight against his chest; Magnus’s moans of pain didn’t cease and Alec felt his heart absolutely shattering. 

Only once he was in a position where Alec could begin to assess his injuries did Alec notice the true, grave extent of it. 

His black coat was torn, ripped right through the middle. His shirt underneath was barely hanging onto his torso—

—and there were three deep puncture marks right in the middle of his chest where he’d been skewered by the demon’s long, poisoned talons.

Alec didn’t have to turn him around to see that the talons had pierced him straight through and out the back.

The least grave thing about his injuries was the fact that it had somehow missed his heart, but Alec knew that injury so close to that area didn’t mean that it couldn’t have somehow nicked an artery or worse.

“ _Al—ex_ …” he heard the choked voice and turned his gaze to find Magnus’s unfocused, half lidded eyes on him.

“Magnus,” he cried. He could already feel the prickling of tears behind his eyes when his gaze landed on Magnus, seeing the golden cat eyes staring back at him, the first sign that Magnus’s magic really was completely depleted, if he couldn’t even keep up that bit of glamour. “Don’t try to speak,” he said, “Please…please just stay with me.”

Magnus spared him a small, weak, lopsided smile. “ _Shu—ld ‘hv stayed_ …” he choked out, breathing hard through his pain, unable to breathe in deeply through the wounds that had punctured his lung, “— _at th’ par—ty_ ,” he said.

Alec tried to force a smile and perhaps a small laugh, but he nearly choked on his sob instead.

“We’ll get help,” he said, adjusting Magnus in his arm so that he was holding him more securely against his chest before he reached up with his free hand to brush the hair off his forehead, trailing down to stroke his cheek with the back of his fingers. “I’ll find help—I’ll save you, Magnus—please…please just hold on.” He moved his hand down to apply pressure to the wound, eliciting a cry of pain from Magnus.

Magnus coughed once with a moan and inhaled painfully, his breathing was coming out wet and thick; blood staining the inner part of his lips and trickled down the side of his mouth. “L’ve you…” he said, his eyes slowly drooping.

“ _No-no-no_ , Magnus, _please_ ,” Alec cried; reaching down with his bloodied hand to pat his pockets, to find his cell phone— _something_! Anything! He needed to do something or Magnus was going to die right there in his arms. He shrugged his jacket off at the same time to use it as a compress and pressed it firmly over the injury with his other hand.

Finding himself at his absolute wits end, with Magnus’s life slowly seeping out of his body, trickling down and splashing onto the cold ground; with no one to turn to and nothing to help him, Alec yearned for the only person he could think of that could find him and could save Magnus.

He screamed.

“ _Jace!”_

And his screams dissolved into sobs when Magnus’s breath hitched and his eyes fully closed.

Alec didn’t know how long he sat there on his knees clutching Magnus’s limp body to his chest, his head cradled in the crook of his elbow, holding him tight; feeling the warm blood still dripping out of the gaping wound in his chest soaking through the jacket compress he was still pressing on the wound, dripping to the ground and saturating the knees of his pants and drenching his arm holding Magnus tight against his body completely red.

There were sounds coming from the mouth of the alley, _footsteps_ , and Alec thought that he should get up; he should find his blade and he should protect Magnus from whatever new threat was approaching, but he just couldn’t find the strength to. 

The agony in his side had subsided to a dull throb that he neither felt nor worried about. Magnus was hurt worse and it was all because of him; Magnus protected him and now he was hurt, possibly dying, and Alec couldn’t do a thing to help him as he couldn’t do a thing to protect him back during the fight.

The footsteps were getting nearer and he finally registered the sound of a voice yelling out incoherently. What was it saying? He couldn’t understand. The only thing he could feel, the only thing that felt real to him in that moment was the warmth of Magnus’s body against his chest, the warmth that was slowly seeping away, and the warm comforting feeling of his parabatai rune throbbing against his side. 

Jace was close; his rune could sense the connection getting stronger and stronger the closer they came to each other.

The feel of a hand on his shoulder, a familiar comforting hand, that brought him back from the brink so many times before and brought him back once again, spurred him to react. He turned his eyes upwards, looking away from Magnus’s ashen face and the blood splatters on his cheek, the blood that still trickled down his chin and trailed down the side of his neck, to find Jace’s comforting gold and blue eyes staring back at him; his eyes were rimmed red and damp, and he looked worse than when Alec had left him drinking the darkness hovering over him away at the bar.

How long had it been since then? It felt like ages.

He felt Jace’s hands cupping the sides of his face; the palms of his hands were cool, not hot like the feel of Magnus’s blood still seeping through his fingers. Jace’s face was one of abject horror and fear; his eyes were wide and his pupils dilated, making his eyes seem black instead of blue and gold.

Jace was speaking but Alec couldn’t understand a word he was saying, if he was even speaking English, but Jace was there in front of him. Jace had found him and Jace would save Magnus. Alec latched onto the comfort his presence provided and he allowed himself to cry. He leaned down to rest his forehead on Magnus’s as he wept.

He could hear Jace yelling something to someone he couldn’t see, but he wasn’t looking at anything other than Magnus.

“We have to get him help,” Jace said. Alec could understand the words but he couldn’t decipher what they meant.

In the next moment, there were more bodies converging on him, reaching for Magnus and grabbing at him. Alec refused to let go until Jace’s voice once again pierced through the smog surrounding him, calling his name worriedly and all of a sudden he smelled the familiar scent of Old Spice body wash mixed with a combination of alcohol and sweat and the soothing voice of Luke saying, “It’s okay, Alec. It’s okay now. You can let go, we’ll take care of him.”

Alec felt his arm loosening the death grip he had on Magnus at Luke’s beckoning; he didn’t fully understand what was happening but all he knew was that Jace was there and Luke was there and they wouldn’t let anything happen to Magnus or him. They wouldn’t do anything to hurt either of them further. He had faith in that.

Soon Magnus was completely out of his grasp; he reached for his limp body just as Jace knelt down in front of him, pulling him into a firm hug. “I’m sorry, Alec. I’m so sorry. I felt that you needed help, but I couldn’t find you. There was something blocking our bond, but I looked—so hard,” he said; his hands grasping a handful of Alec’s sweat soaked shirt behind him, holding him close. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.”

Alec latched on just as tightly. His ears listened as Jace’s teary voice spoke to him, but his eyes were unable to look away from Magnus’s still form being cradled protectively in Luke’s arms, his head resting on Luke’s strong shoulder; Izzy stood beside them, applying pressure to the wound just as Alec had been doing. Clary was hovering near, her hair in disarray and her eyes wide and glistening and she was frantically scribbling a rune into the palm of her hand with her stele before she motioned to Luke and Izzy to step out of the way, allowing the golden rune to hover in mid-air between her and the mouth of the alley, before shoving her open palm right through the middle, rippling the air with electricity until a swirling golden vortex opened up in the middle of the narrow alleyway. 

Luke, still cradling Magnus’s limp body close to his chest like he weighed nothing, stepped through immediately with Izzy close at his side. 

Clary kept her arm outstretched in front of her, her hair billowed around her head from the strength of the portal that sent the metal dumpster and everything in the alley flying around like it was caught in the eye of a hurricane.

“Jace! Alec!” Clary yelled. “We have to go now!”

Alec didn’t remember moving, mainly because he didn’t. He couldn’t find the strength to get his feet under him to stand up and instead found himself being lifted up by Jace’s strong arms around his waist; pulling his arm across his shoulder and taking all of Alec’s weight onto himself. His arm circled around Alec’s waist, pressing against his painful ribs but Alec couldn’t concentrate on his own pain in that moment.

He and Jace were both moving on Jace’s strength alone. He managed a glance at Clary who was shaking under the stress of keeping the portal open for as long as she was, her brows furrowed in concentration.  At the very last moment before they stepped through the shimmering vortex, he heard himself ask, “Where are we going?”

Jace turned to look him seriously. “Magnus’s,” he said, “Luke sent Raphael to fetch another warlock, a healer. He stands a better chance there than at the Institute,” he said and Alec didn’t answer before they stepped through, feeling the familiar pull at their navel and the strange sensation of being pulled apart and put back together in the very same instance. He felt another presence stumbling in behind him and Jace before the power of the portal behind them fizzled out and disappeared, leaving the immediate area of Magnus’s apartment in messy disarray.

Magnus wasn’t going to like that, Alec mused momentarily before the memory and the reality of the situation hit him like a ton of bricks that were also on fire.

He felt his knees buckle under him and this time even Jace was caught too off guard to stop his sudden descent as his arms slipped out of Jace’s hold.

“Magnus,” he found himself calling out the moment he landed on the floor on all fours.

“He’s here, Alec.” It was Luke’s voice coming from Magnus’s bedroom and Alec latched onto it. 

There was a faint shimmering in the corner near the doors that led to the balcony before the air began swirling around before a whirling, pulsating black hole ripped through fabric of reality and a dishevelled dark skinned woman in green scrubs, her hair pulled up into a messy bun came rushing out. She looked around apprehensively for a split second before Luke’s voice once again rung out, “Over here!” from the bedroom and the warlock sprinted over in that direction without a word. 

The portal blinked again before Raphael’s concerned form came stepping through immediately after; much like the woman before, he made an immediate beeline for the master bedroom.

Alec couldn’t find the strength to get his feet to work and the moment he tried to push himself up he ended up sprawling into Jace’s awaiting arms. 

He couldn’t muster the energy to do it again after that and just allowed himself to sag in the protective embrace of Jace’s arms. 

Magnus needed him, he needed his strength but Alec had none left to give.

“It’s okay, Alec,” Jace said into his ear; he could feel Jace’s hand stroking the back of his head. “The healer is here and Clary, Izzy, and Luke are in there with him. Just…Just try to breathe.”

But Alec couldn’t breathe, his lungs refused to expand and his chest felt like it was caught in a vice. He couldn’t stop playing the scene of the fight over and over again in his head. He couldn’t stop seeing Magnus falling to the ground over and over again on a loop; the feel of his blood on his hands, the blood now crusty and dried and tainting the air around him with the smell of copper that invaded his senses. He couldn’t stop looking into Magnus’s eyes, seeing the gorgeous cat eyes that he loved looking into when it was just the two of them cuddled in bed in the morning before one or both of them had to leave for work. He couldn’t stop hearing Magnus saying the words ‘love you’ while he was trying not to choke on his own blood. He couldn’t stop feeling like his entire world just crumbled at his feet twice in one day.

Alec didn’t think there was enough left in him after feeling Jace die, but after seeing Magnus almost die in his arms; after watching the life slowly seeping from his eyes, Alec thought that it wasn’t possible for a human being—regardless of blood—to be broken so many times and to be able to put himself back together again without the cracks being irreparable and permanent.

He felt the prickling of tears behind his eyes and it washed away all the aches and pains that were gnawing at his body.

His parabatai rune was warm, not hot or burning, but warm, like sitting by the burning embers of the fireplace when a snowstorm was raging outside. The feeling was flowing throughout his whole body, activating his iratze and spreading over all his aches and his pains. He could feel his broken ribs slowly mending, the bones regenerating and being moulded back together. He could feel the torn muscles in his shoulder entwining together and healing. He could feel all his injuries being fixed, except the injury to his heart that had shattered it into a dozen different pieces.

He mustered up the strength to look down and found that Jace wasn’t using his stele; he’d activated his own iratze and healed Alec through their bond. 

Alec released the hold he had around Jace’s torso and allowed him to pull back so that they were face to face again.

“Better?” he asked. His eyes were still stormy, like there was a dark cloud hovering just out of reach, but his gaze was kind and caring and he looked at Alec like he meant the absolute world and to Alec that was all he needed in that moment. He needed to get to Magnus; he needed to be with Magnus. “Go,” Jace said, motioning towards the bedroom with his chin. Alec got to his feet but Jace didn’t move from his position still kneeling on the floor. “I’m okay, I just need a minute. Go be with Magnus,” he said.

Usually Alec would have argued, Jace was his parabatai, but Magnus was also important to him and he found himself torn between the two. 

All of a sudden Jace reached up to grab his hand, holding it tight and his eyes spoke volumes without him saying a word. Instead he just nodded and Alec nodded at him in return and quickly made his way towards the bedroom where he could hear a multitude of raised voices from behind the half closed door. 

Alec had his back turned to Jace and didn’t see Jace drop down onto the floor heavily and resting his head, eyes closed against the armrest of the chair behind him; as if he’s been carrying the entire weight of the world on his shoulders and had only just found respite.

Alec found himself pushing open the door, using the second he was afforded before it swung open to take a deep breath to prepare himself for what he was about to see.

Nothing could have prepared himself for the sight of Magnus’s favourite luxurious Charlotte Thomas bespoke gold sheets—Alec only knew the name because Magnus once spent an entire morning reciting an ode to it as if it were a revered former lover—completely drenched in blood and grim and the bloody fingerprint covered pillows discarded to the side.

Luke was sitting up against the headboard holding a restless yet still unconscious Magnus in his arms, pulling him against his own blood soaked chest. Raphael and Izzy were on either side of the bed, trying to hold his arms down on the mattress but he was struggling against their hold, and Clary was standing apprehensively beside the healer looking like she wanted to help but not knowing how to—Alec assumed it was Catarina; he’d never met her before but Magnus used to speak of her with such fondness and awe. Her face was one of intense concentration, as if she wasn’t at all perturbed by Magnus writhing on the bed. His eyes clenched tightly and his teeth gritted against the obvious pain.

Magnus’s shirt and coat had been removed and he was lying on the bed in only his pants; his necklaces had been removed, hurriedly because Alec could see them strewn on the floor beside the bed.

His chest…his chest was one giant gaping wound; as if the three small wounds had festered sometime between the alley and them arriving at the apartment, the surrounding skin was sloughing and mottled and bruised red, blue and black with small throbbing veins trailing across his shoulder and down his stomach.

“Alec!” Luke’s voice shook him out of his thoughts and he looked up to find his concerned gaze locked on him. “Are you okay? We could use some help.”

Alec didn’t need to be told twice. He could feel Catarina’s eyes on him as he sprinted over to the bed, crawling across the short distance and reached to take Magnus’s body off of Luke.

Luke seemed hesitant, but a single look from Catarina convinced him to relent and he easily surrendered his hold on Magnus to Alec, helping Alec slide into the spot he vacated and lowering Magnus’s hand down to rest on Alec’s chest. Alec wrapped his arms loosely around Magnus’s shoulders, careful to avoid the horrific wound and the even more horrific stench it was giving off from up close. Instead of trying to hold him down, he motioned to both Izzy and Raphael to let go and bent down to whisper into Magnus’s ear. He didn’t even know if Magnus could hear him, but even with his energy depleted and gravely injured, Magnus was still the most powerful person in the room. No one would be able to hold him down if he wouldn’t allow them to.

Instead Alec said, “Magnus, it’s Alexander—you’re okay now. You’re in safe hands. We’re just trying to help you, please—please just let us,” and he reached up with his still dirty, blood covered hand to stroke Magnus’s cheek with his thumb, resting his forehead on Magnus’s, closing his eyes as he synced his breathing to Magnus’s painful laboured breaths. He felt the moment Magnus finally calmed down, his restlessness ceased and his hands dropped back down to the mattress.

Alec finally opened his eyes to look at Catarina, only to find her already staring back at him, a sad yet grateful smile on her face. 

The blue, almost glittering magic disappeared from her hands for a moment as she crawled across the bed and leaned down close to Magnus. “Magnus,” she said softly, “It’s Cat. I’m going to heal your injury, but I’m going to have to siphon the demon poison from the wound first—I won’t lie, it will be painful, but just listen to my voice, just listen to Alec’s voice and just remember that we’re only doing it to help you, okay? We’re all with you; Raphael and Luke and the pretty Shadowhunter girls you’re so fond of.”

Magnus didn’t answer. His brows furrowed when he took a deep shuddering breath.

Alec latched on tighter, holding Magnus by the shoulders, his cheek resting on Magnus’s forehead, now nearly scorching hot because of the infection and the demon poison coursing through his body.

He thought back to earlier that night—a glance at the clock told him that it had been barely an hour since the first attack. How was that even possible? It felt like he’d been living and reliving that nightmare for days. He tried to latch onto the better memories of fonder times; seeing Magnus smile for the first time in what seemed like weeks, the way it brightened up his whole face almost immediately. Alec noticed long ago that Magnus smiled often, but he seldom truly smiled. His smile rarely reaches his eyes and the sparkle it ignited was not often seen, but Alec had seen them more than once, and this evening behind the Hunter’s Moon, the moment he came to the realization that he couldn’t imagine his life without Magnus, the moment he realized he _needed_ Magnus in his life, and Magnus reciprocated with his own heartfelt emotions, seeing him smile then was like a balm on his already fractured soul.

But Magnus was not smiling now. He had a look of pure agony on his face that Alec had never seen before and would be glad to never see again.

“Ready?” Catarina asked. “This is going to be very painful, but it’s a very delicate procedure so I need you to keep him as still as you can. If I don’t get all the poison out, the wound will continue to spread beyond my healing capabilities.”

Alec swallowed hard but nodded. Catarina exchanged looks with the four people standing around the bed, Luke and Raphael standing in position on either side; not touching Magnus but there just in case their presence was needed. Izzy and Clary seated on the mattress at the foot of the bed, ready to leap into action or offer energy, which ever service Catarina needed of them.

Catarina was perched on the side by Magnus’s right hand, her eyes closed for a moment, taking measured breaths in and out in preparation; blue sparks zapping around her finger-tips absentmindedly and she played around with the jolts, passing them from one finger to another. 

Alec usually found that kind of display of magic absolutely captivating, but in that moment, he couldn’t concentrate on anything other than Magnus; the way his breath hitched as if he could somehow feel what was coming.

And then Catarina began.

Alec thought it was hard seeing Magnus so injured and so helpless, seeing the strong man whose heart and kindness and compassion was twice as large and twice as strong as the power he possessed. But it was nothing compared to seeing him screaming his voice raw and writhing in pain the moment Catarina’s beautiful blue magic touched the pungent, smouldering wound on his chest.

Luke and Raphael immediately leapt into action, grabbing his wrist and holding it down on the mattress. Alec wasn’t looking at Luke, his face was turned towards Raphael and he could see the vampire looking away, staring at absolutely anything and everything besides Magnus. In that moment, Alec related to Raphael more than he ever thought he would.

Izzy and Clary were both quick to grab Magnus’s legs while keeping close to Catarina in the very likely case that she’d need extra energy and fast.

Alec’s parabatai rune tingled suddenly and even though he wasn’t looking in the direction of the door, he could sense Jace walking slowly into the room. Alec finally turned to look at him when he felt the mattress dip slightly when Jace crawled across it, placing his hand on Clary’s shoulder as if to tell her to leave it to him and to focus her and Izzy’s energy on helping Catarina with her magic.

Catarina was already sweating, and it had barely been a few minutes since she started, though half of her distress could have been because of the stress of trying to keep her oldest and closest friend alive.

Alec saw Clary reach over to place her hand on Catarina’s outstretched one and Catarina spared her a split second glance and a small smile that said everything that needed to be said. The grimace on her face eased before her magic blossomed right before Alec’s very eyes.

Magnus’s magic was beautiful to look at, powerful and strong, able to heal and destroy in the same breath, like fires that were constantly licking at the surface, not really burning but never truly extinguished, powerful and beautiful but _terrifying_ , and yet the pulsating thrum of the power always seemed contained and restricted, never really allowed to just burn. That was the impression Alec always got.

Catarina’s magic was completely different; where Magnus’s magic swirled and seared like flames of red and yellow, sometimes royal blue with a hint of white; Catarina’s was mostly a light powder blue that glimmered like an iridescent on the surface; it glinted and sparkled and would occasionally send up bursts of energy like small fireworks in her palm.

The sparks sizzled when it landed on Magnus’s blackened skin, leaving behind charred residue that got blown away by the air.

Eventually Magnus’s screams stopped and he collapsed limp into Alec’s arms. A glance at Catarina didn’t show her any more concerned than she already was so Alec tried not to panic. Instead he hugged Magnus closer to his chest and stroked his cheek with his thumb.

The rest had also let go of the limbs they were trying to hold down. Both Luke and Jace were panting hard from the effort, Jace more than Alec would have expected, but Raphael let go of Magnus’s wrist and immediately stepped away, keeping his back to them as he walked over to the dresser and leaned his side against it, facing the wall.

The sight of the poison leaving Magnus’s body was something Alec couldn’t look away from. The miniscule droplets of solidified, smouldering black crystals that rose into the air and hovered threateningly over the wound, hissing and spitting every time it came into contact with the spark from Catarina’s magic.

Alec could see Clary slowly swaying on her feet because of the amount of energy she was channelling into Catarina.

Without anyone saying anything, Catarina’s magic dimmed considerably and she pulled Clary’s hand off of hers. “Go sit down, you’ve done more than enough.” Clary looked ready to argue, but she only managed a feeble ‘but’ before Catarina pointed towards the two seater carved Javanese chair in the far corner with a commanding, “Go.”

A frowning Clary had barely taken a reluctant step towards the opposite end of the room before Izzy stepped up and without waiting for word or instruction, not even looking at Catarina before she placed her hand over hers the same way Clary had just seconds ago. 

Catarina’s magic sputtered for a beat before coming to life once again, perhaps even brighter and more powerful than it had been with Clary. Even Catarina seemed surprised and Alec caught Izzy’s intense, concentrated gaze staring at Magnus before she looked up at him and he mouthed an appreciative, “Thank you.”

Izzy nodded but didn’t say a word. Instead she reached over with her free hand to grasp onto Magnus’s limp hand resting at his side.

The healing continued until Izzy also started swaying slightly where she was sitting by Magnus’s hip. By then, Catarina had managed to extract every single drop of the solidified and coagulated poison from Magnus’s veins with just the contributed energy from Izzy and Clary. 

By the time the last crystal rose up into the air and was disintegrated by Catarina’s magic, Izzy was barely sitting up. When she slipped off the side of the bed, it was too sudden even for Jace’s quick reflexes and especially for Alec who still had his arms around Magnus. But before she hit the floor hard, a third figure had swooped in and scooped her up gently into a cradle in his arms as he got to his feet.

Raphael stared at the barely conscious, bleary eyed Izzy in his arms. She seemed too exhausted and drained to even realize what had happened, but before anything Raphael turned his gaze to Alec, asking with his eyes whether it was okay for him to take care of her in his stead.

Alec exhaled once but nodded. Raphael returned his nod appreciatively and carried Izzy out into the hallway towards the sofa in the living room to rest. 

Alec could only watch them go with his eyes. He had no choice but to trust Raphael in that moment, but the instinct of a big brother was something that was hard to break.

“I’ve gotten all the poison out,” Catarina announced, almost as if to break the tension in the room. “Normally this kind of poison wouldn’t have affected a warlock this badly, especially this type of poison and especially on Magnus—” Alec couldn’t help but wonder what she meant by that, but he didn’t think it was the right moment to ask, “—but because his magic had been completely exhausted—I say _completely_ exhausted; it’s a wonder he didn’t die from the magic depletion itself, I have never in my long life seen a warlock this drained of power. What actually happened?” she asked, looking Alec straight in the eye.

The wound on Magnus’s chest was still open and raw, still seeping blood, but it had finally turned a regular red and pink colour, spotted with yellow bits of muscle and tendon that had been ripped through like paper. It was no longer black, veiny and mottled and malodorous. 

“Shax demons,” he said, “A hoard of them attacked us when we were walking back from the bar. Magnus had helped us out with an aberration that evening which siphoned a lot of his power and he had to portal us between the beach area, the Institute and Alicante multiple times around that time. We were caught right in the middle, basically unarmed and Magnus with barely enough magic to keep up his glamour.

“But then one of the Asmodei demons showed up—we thought they’d all disappeared, but this one came out of nowhere and…” Alec trailed off reluctantly, looking away. “And it would have gotten me instead if Magnus hadn’t pushed me out of the way.”

Catarina exhaled exasperatedly. “You fool,” she whispered under her breath. “You damned fool.”

“I’m sorry,” Alec said, thinking the comment had been directed towards him but Catarina shook her head instead.

“No, Magnus did right,” she said. “The poison itself is grave on a warlock, even on Magnus, but on a Nephilim, especially this amount and this severe, it would have been almost instantly fatal,” she said. “Did the demon cut you at any point?”

Alec tried to think; he distinctly recalled a burning feeling across his chest before he was flung roughly into the wall. He reached up to his shirt, torn to ribbons across the chest and popped the button, pulling the collar to show the scratches, extending from the middle of his chest almost to his armpit, to Catarina.

The injury hadn’t hurt when he received it and it didn’t hurt now, not as much as it should have given the state of the wound against his pale chest.

The three scratches, barely scraped across the surface of his skin were now black, the skin was peeling around the edges and small black veins were creeping from the wound spread out about an inch in either way.

Catarina exhaled but didn’t seem overly panicked so Alec tried to take his cue from her.

“It’s not too serious,” she said, “It doesn’t seem like it broke the epidermis. I’ll heal you once I get done with Magnus,” she added and Alec could only mutter a short thank you.

This time it was Jace who scooted up higher up the bed, sitting cross-legged on the mattress to Alec’s right. He reached over to grasp Catarina’s hand in his larger one before levelling her with an intense look. “Take whatever you need to heal Magnus,” he said, “I’ll still have plenty left over for Alec.”

Catarina shook her head slightly with a sigh though she had a small impressed smile on her face. “Impulsive, self-sacrificing Nephilim fools, the lot of you,” she said, but the words didn’t come across at all as an insult. “I suppose you all really found each other.”

Alec decided to take that as a compliment because from what Magnus had told him of Catarina, it was one.

Healing the wound was easier and took considerably less effort than extracting the poison. Magnus actually looked calm and contented in his arms and Alec adjusted himself a little so he’d have a better grip on Magnus resting with his back against his chest.

Jace at his side looked completely mesmerized by his energy being channelled through Catarina’s magic.

Alec realized suddenly that he hadn’t heard a word from Luke in a while. A glance around the far end of the room proved unhelpful but eventually he found him sitting on the other half of the Javanese chair in the corner near the window with Clary curled up on her side facing away from the bed, sleeping with her head rested on Luke’s lap. Luke wasn’t looking at them; his eyes were focused completely on Clary as he ran his fingers gently and intermittently through her hair.

Alec turned back from the sight and watched as Catarina’s magic weaved through the gaping wound, like a master seamstress, healing the jagged puncture in his lung and stitching up the muscles and tendons and reconnecting the arteries. It was absolutely spellbinding watching the way a master healer went about her craft; the intricate way in which she worked and navigated around the tiniest aspects of the human body. The way she could tell which artery and which vein and which blood vessel went where; the way she reconnected the tissues and nerves. Alec couldn’t look away from the way her fingers and her hands danced in mid-air like a puppeteer controlling the string of his puppet. It was so similar to Magnus and yet so different.

Catarina was precise in her movements where Magnus was elegant. Catarina had a meticulous sort of beauty to her gesticulation where Magnus almost danced in his. Catarina’s magic was ethereal whereas Magnus’s raged like burning embers.

Alec never really gave that much thought to the possibility that all warlocks performed their magic differently, he had no reason to. But he realized that perhaps he’d been too pre-programmed by the Clave’s influence that he never would have questioned aspects beyond everything he was already taught to know.

But he knew better now and he knew to _be_ better and he owed it to Magnus and Luke and even Raphael a little, for forcing him to open his eyes and really see the world as it was, not as he was taught to view it.

The world was much more beautiful on this side of the fence and so were the occupants.

He looked down to Magnus’s closed eyes and his head resting comfortably on his chest. The way his eyelashes almost brushed the top of his cheeks, his makeup smudged beyond salvation and his lips parted slightly in breath. But compared to the Magnus that had been a screaming agonizing mess not too long ago, this peacefully slumbering Magnus was a blessing. His temperature was still far too high and his pulse was still far too shallow, but at least he wasn’t in pain anymore and that was all Alec could have asked for.

Catarina continued until the wound had completely mended, and not a trace of it was visible to the naked eye bar the almost silvery scar that spread across one side of his chest like a flower. By that point Catarina was already almost dead on her feet, but she persevered, calling Alec to her instead of having to drag herself up to get to him. 

Alec gently moved Magnus to the bed, reaching for one of the discarded pillows on the side and fluffing it up slightly before lowering Magnus’s head slowly onto the soft pillow. Magnus didn’t stir once which Alec didn’t know whether to count as a blessing or otherwise.

But he approached Catarina who was half lying across the foot of the bed, propped up on one elbow. She beckoned him closer with two fingers and both Alec and Jace moved as one closer to her.

His healing took almost no time at all in comparison, and experiencing the feel of Catarina’s magic flowing through his body was as soothing and as gentle as he imagined.

When his wound was clear of the blackened veins and the rancid smell of poison, when the shallow scars had healed to nothing, only then did Catarina allow herself to flop down onto the mattress on her back, her arms splayed out beside her head.

“Magnus will owe me an entire winery after today,” she said.

Jace hadn’t said anything the whole time, he just pushed himself further back and leaned his back against the bedpost while Alec took a seat on the edge of the mattress at Magnus’s side, reaching over to grasp the limp hand and holding it tight in his own.

Alec looked back over at Luke only to find him snoring slightly, his head leaning back and his neck slightly extended in a way that promised that he was bound to wake up with a stiff neck in the morning. Clary was still asleep and Catarina looked about half way headed towards slumber land herself.

Eventually it was only Jace and Alec left to their privacy in the room. Alec wasn’t tired; he didn’t know whether he’d ever be able to sleep again, and Jace’s eyes kept drooping but he kept forcing them back open.

“How did you find us?” Alec asked without turning; his eyes locked onto Magnus’s serene face, still completely lost in the throes of unconsciousness. His face was still speckled with dried blood and his clothes were covered in ichor and demon ash but he was alive; his chest was red and raw and still had remnants of bruising from the fight but he was alive. His heart was still beating and his lungs were expanding and contracting every time he inhaled and exhaled. “You said you didn’t know where we were?”

Jace leaned back heavily against the bedpost, his legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. His bare arms were stained with the blood that came off of Alec’s blood drenched clothes. “I…I guess…I heard you calling me,” he said, but his mind was elsewhere like he was concentrating hard on trying to remember exactly how he managed to do what Alec had asked ahead of everyone else. “But not your voice in my ear, more like…I heard you inside my head and somehow—suddenly I just _knew_ where to find you. I could smell the stench of blood and ichor and the rotten garbage in that alley but as if I was smelling it through someone else’s nose, like my brain had already registered the stench even though there was no garbage anywhere near me. I don’t know how to explain.”

Alec didn’t really understand and yet he did. Ultimately it all had come down to the power of their bond; Jace had experienced it all _through_ him, there was no real explanation to it and there probably would never be. The only thing that mattered was that he needed Jace in that moment and he was there.

“Did you feel…” he started asking but trailed off uncertain.

“Every single thing,” Jace said seriously. “It was different before because I could always feel you there, but it was like the bond was blocked somehow. But now…I don’t know, it’s like everything just suddenly started flowing through. I felt that deep inside my gut suddenly at the bar, something told me that something wasn’t right, that you were in trouble. I was on the way out looking for you when the pain started. And then…well, you know the rest.”

Alec could only nod. His eyes fixed on Magnus’s face. He wanted—he _needed_ to clean him up somehow; Magnus would hate waking up looking so unkempt and dirty and surrounded by people looking at him in his most wretched state, but he couldn’t find the energy to move from his position. He needed to clean himself up somehow; his clothes were covered in filth and ichor from the battle, he was sweaty and dirty and covered in so much blood he felt like he’d need the sharp end of a seraph blade to scrape all of it off him. 

Magnus’s room was a filthy disarrayed mess and Alec couldn’t have that. 

He looked over to his side and found that Jace had already dozed off, his arms crossed and his chin resting on his chest.

Alec gently placed Magnus’s hand back on the bed beside him, reaching over to plant a soft chaste kiss on his cheek and pushed himself to his feet with a pained groan. Just because he’d been healed by both Jace and Catarina, it didn’t mean that he still didn’t hurt down to his weary bones.

He limped over to Magnus’s bathroom, trying to be as quiet as he could so not to wake everyone else who were sleeping in the room and the first thing he did after locking the door behind him was find the mirror. He was almost too afraid to look at himself when he stepped up to the sink, allowing his gaze to look over all the different bottles of soaps, perfumes and toiletries Magnus had meticulously arranged on the large marble sink area spread out wide before him.

His reflection in the mirror was— _horrifying_.

He couldn’t tell where the grime and filth and the crusts of dark red blood ended and where he actually began. His eyes were rimmed red and puffy and his clothes were a complete loss.

Alec shed each article of clothing slowly, painfully, feeling the hardened material of his shirt almost crackling in his hand when he reached back to pull it off. All of his clothing, or what was left of them; he dropped immediately into the waste basket beside the door, except for his boots that he set aside to clean later and he took a breath, steeling himself before he stepped into the shower.

The feel of the hot water was like heaven on his tired and beaten body and he found himself just standing there under the cascading waterfall just letting the divine liquid wash over him, rinsing the filth form his body. The water at his feet ran completely black with bits of red swirling into the mix. Only when the bulk of the filth had been rinsed off did Alec reach for the soaps and the shampoos and conditioners. 

He used to be the one bottle of soap for multiple uses and every occasion kind of guy, back before he met Magnus, back when he was still living in fear of his true self. But ever since then, he’d come to appreciate the small joys that came along with the simplest things, like a newly opened bottle of body soap and the feel of his face after using a cleanser that was actually made for facial use. The softness of his hair and the scent even he could smell wafting off him after a long, satisfying bath.

Magnus always smelled good and that was one of the things Alec loved most about him. Being around Magnus was always pleasurable in more ways than one.

But now he couldn’t stop thinking about how Magnus had smelled like death and it was a scent that didn’t belong on him at all. It made Alec’s heart break to see him so weak and so helpless, to see him in Luke’s strong arms, looking so lifeless that he feared that Magnus had somehow slipped away in the few seconds he’d been pulled from Alec’s arms.

The Magnus he knew, the Magnus he loved was strong and beautiful. He was powerful but also kind and compassionate. He’d lived a terrible life and survived a horrific childhood and somehow he’d come out of it as someone who still believed wholeheartedly in love, and that was one of the qualities Alec admired most about him.

The pain of peeling and scrubbing the clumps of dried blood in his hair was a welcome relief from his thoughts and he could taste the bitterness of the blood running in the water as it streamed down his face.

He would have stayed forever in that shower if he could, but instead he remembered that Magnus still needed him, he still needed to be at Magnus’s side, so he finished washing up quickly after that, towelling himself off and finally found a familiar face staring back at him in the mirror. He pulled out a pair of black pants and a black t-shirt from the cupboard in the bathroom where he kept some spare clothes in case of an emergency. Magnus had provided him a section in his gigantic walk in closet for his clothes, but Alec still preferred to have at least a spare pair within reaching distance especially in the bathroom. And it was a decision he never appreciated more than at that moment.

He found a ceramic bowl and one of Magnus’s face towels hanging to the side; filled the bowl with warm water, slung the cloth over his shoulder and walked back into the bedroom.

Nothing had changed in the time it had taken him to get cleaned up. Luke and Clary were still sleeping, cuddled together on the chair beside the window. Jace still had his arms crossed and his head bowed low, his chin resting on his chest, snoring softly. Catarina was sprawled on her back at the foot of the bed, her head almost in Jace’s lap and she too was lost to the world.

Alec placed the bowl down on the side table and quietly made his way towards the door to check up on Izzy. 

His eyes met Raphael’s almost immediately when he stepped out. The vampire’s expression was unreadable but his eyes compassionate. Izzy was curled up against his chest sleeping soundly and he had a hand running through her hair, smoothing it out between his fingers. 

Alec didn’t comment; he just spared Raphael a small nod which was reciprocated respectfully.

He returned to Magnus’s side, grabbed the cloth, dipped it in the warm water and wrung out the excess. He pulled back the dirty section of the sheet he’d been sitting on and took a seat on the clean part, hesitating slightly before he reached over and gently dabbed away the grime and the blood splatters from Magnus’s face.

He didn’t know how long he kept at it, at least long enough until Magnus’s face was no longer covered in dirt and blood, until his face was clear of the smudged make up and the ash remnants that stained his cheeks; until he finally looked like Magnus again. Then Alec leaned back where he sat and just looked.

Everyone was asleep, the air was stale and silent in the room but to Alec it felt like it was only him and Magnus in that moment, he could only see Magnus clearly in front of him, everything else was just a blurry haze standing off to the side. He reached over and gently placed his palm on the side of Magnus’s face, stroking his cheek with his thumb.

Then the mattress shifted slightly and broke the illusion like a shattering mirror.

Alec turned around to find Catarina sitting up, leaning against the bedpost closest to him. Her eyes were trained intently on him and her face expressionless.

“How long have you been awake?” he asked, turning around sheepishly to place the bowl and the towel back on the side table, rubbing the palm of his hands on the knees of his pants absentmindedly.

“Long enough,” he heard her say.

The mattress shifted again and dipped slightly behind him, indicating that Catarina had stood up but he didn’t dare turn around. He could sense her stretching her limbs and was proven right by the moan he could hear. She rounded the bed and walked over to the opposite side, mimicking Alec when she pulled back the dirtied sheet and took a seat on Magnus’s left.

“Magnus will be pissed that we ruined his sheets,” she said. “He has a very unhealthy attachment to his collection of bed sheets.”

Alec tried not to laugh but he couldn’t stop the smile from breaking out. He readjusted his position slightly, bringing his right leg up on the mattress, his ankle tucked under his knee and he scooted a little closer to Magnus, reaching to hold his hand. Magnus’s hand was warm to the touch and Alec didn’t know whether it was cause for concern. Magnus’s touch was always slightly cooler than others—while Jace burned almost hot—so the feel of his hand so warm in his grasp felt very out of place.

Alec didn’t think he said that out loud until Catarina answered. “It’s the infection. It’s normal with these types of wounds especially considering his state when he suffered the injury. We’ll have to keep a close eye on him for the next few days.”

Alec just nodded.

He paid Catarina no mind after that, feeling his imagination starting to drift off again until he felt a cool hand on his and found Catarina on the other end, pulling his hand close to her and clasping it tight between her own, sitting cross legged facing him and Magnus. 

Alec watched her as she ran her fingers over his, turning his hand inside hers, gently caressing his palm down to the ball of his thumb. He could feel a shudder running through his body at the touch.

“Hardened, calloused fingers—” she muttered, still surveying his hand intently. “You must be an archer,” she said. Alec raised a surprised eyebrow, until she looked up at him with just her eyes and a wide grin broke spread across her face. “I’m just kidding. Magnus told me that bit, but even if he hadn’t, I think I probably would have guessed,” she added. She lifted her head up to study him after that, still holding his hand in both of hers, running her thumb over the back of his hand. “These are strong hands. Hands that seem like they work hard and they put in a lot of effort into everything they’re doing.”

Alec swallowed when he returned her gaze. He knew this was a line he needed to tread carefully. “They do.”

Catarina didn’t answer for a long while. She just kept her eyes on him, her gaze intense and focused, almost like she was seeing straight through his very soul. “Good,” she said eventually. “Because…well, because it’s what he deserves— _effort_. Very few people have put in the effort to be with him in the past. They take what they can and the moment everything becomes too hard or too complicated, they leave. He deserves more than that,” she said sadly, this time looking at an unconscious Magnus still completely lost to the world. “He deserves absolutely everything.”

Alec mimicked her action, his one hand still holding Magnus’s and his other clutched in Catarina’s tight grip. “I know.”

“I heard about what happened between the two of you,” she added suddenly, attracting Alec’s attention once again. “Because of that Seelie Queen brat—” the comment came out of the blue and with such vehemence Alec almost snorted with laughter, “—she may or may not be one of the oldest Downworlders, but she is certainly the most petulant. But…I just wanted to ask you not to take it to heart. Magnus loves easily, and because of that he’s gotten his heart broken over and over again. Sometimes the fear of that happening again drives him to do stupid things—this being one of his stupider decisions, mind you—but it’s only because he cares too deeply, and it makes him do foolish things,” a small smile curled at the corner of Catarina’s lips as she seemed to recall a fond memory of something that had happened in their past. “He once got into an argument with Ragnor, this was in the late seventeen-hundreds if I recall correctly, somewhere in South America—or was it one of the Borneo islands— _anyway_ , he fought with Ragnor over nothing really, got upset and joined a cult.”

Alec truly did laugh then, trying to even imagine the sight. “What?”

“Yes, a very dumb decision on his part and between that stupidity and Ragnor acting like a petulant child, they’re lucky I didn’t kill them both right there,” she said.  Her face immediately turned sombre after that. “My point is…don’t let this— _façade_ , fool you, Alec. Magnus hurts just like the rest of us, perhaps even more, and sometimes that hurt makes him do and say things that he doesn’t mean and do things he never would have done had he been in his right mind—”

Alec shook his head quickly, interrupting her. “You don’t have to explain, I already know all that,” he said and Catarina looked visibly surprised. “I realized while we were apart that…that I can’t live without him—and I said to him before that relationships take effort and maybe saying those words was easier than actually sticking to them, but regardless, I have no intention of breaking my promise. Not now, not ever. And if it’s effort that’s needed, it’s effort I’m willing to put in.”

Catarina smiled at that and Alec reciprocated. 

“Good,” she said and it was all Alec really needed her to say.

The silence resumed until she lifted Alec’s hand that she was still holding and placed it on top of Magnus’s chest, covering the back of it with her own. Alec could feel the sensation of magic being channelled through him, not just through his hand but throughout his entire body. It was a tingling feeling that wasn’t unpleasant, only strange. But he could see the blue iridescent magic creeping over Magnus’s body, over his chest and neck and down his arms; across his face and through his hair, and quickly as it spread, it disappeared, leaving Magnus completely free of the filth that had dirtied his body. His arm and hands were clean; his hair was soft and splayed out on the pillow behind his head, his dirtied pants replaced by a clean pair of red silk pyjama bottoms and the sheets on the bed had been completely magicked clean.

Catarina removed her hand from the back of Alec’s and with a flick of her wrist, magicked a blanket over Magnus, pulling up to his stomach.

“We need to keep an eye on the injury,” she explained without Alec even asking. “To see whether there’s still remnants of the poison that I’d missed. It would usually become active again within a 24 hour period, so we need to watch out for that and fever from the demonic residue. He may be healed, but he isn’t out of the woods yet,” she said and Alec could only nod.

It probably wasn’t going to be easy, but looking at Catarina looking at Magnus with such relief on her face, and looking at Magnus who looked so pale against the golden hue of the pillowcase behind him; his lips cracked and bloodless and dark circles under his closed eyes; Alec couldn’t stop thinking back to earlier that night, before everything that happened, actually happened. The smile on Magnus’s face that he yearned to look upon again and the relief in his eyes the moment Alec had said that he couldn’t live without him. The relief he knew was mirrored in his own when Magnus said the same equivalent back to him.

How that moment went from being so good and so happy, to how it turned out, it was something that would probably continue to haunt him for ages, perhaps forever.

But looking at Magnus, looking so pale and so absent, not at all like the effervescent and charismatic warlock he’d come to know and love, it was scary and unnerving and Alec had to ground himself back into the moment and not allow himself to get too caught up in the ‘what ifs’. But Magnus was alive and Catarina and Jace were by his side; Izzy and Clary, and Luke and Raphael, they were all there; they had all played a part in saving Magnus’s life and for that he would be forever grateful and he knew Magnus would too.

…after he chewed them all out for getting blood and dirt all over his priceless bedsheets.

Alec didn’t know how long he sat there unmoving, _hours_ , just holding onto Magnus’s hand as if he could keep him anchored to the world with just that bit of reassurance that he was there and he wasn’t going anywhere.

Catarina had gone out into the living room a while ago no doubt to raid Magnus’s liquor cabinet with impunity. After all she’d more than deserved it.

Clary had woken up sometime during the night—or was it already morning? Alec couldn’t be sure— and carefully untangled herself from Luke’s embrace; her flaming orange hair dishevelled and her eyes bleary with sleep and the remnants of exhaustion. Through the window, in the distance Alec could see the dawning of the new day as the brightness began illuminating the tops of the buildings in the horizon.

“How is he?” she asked, walking over to his side and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“The same,” he said.

Magnus hadn’t stirred once during the night. His injury hadn’t gotten worse, but his fever had spiked about an hour ago and small droplets of sweat had started beading at his forehead, trickling down his neck and chest. His breathing was laboured and his Adam’s apple bobbed every time he swallowed painfully as he continued to be trapped in the throes of his nightmares.

To Alec’s right, Jace was surprisingly still asleep, though he’d slipped down from his original position of leaning against the bedpost and had curled up on his side on a small section of mattress near the foot of the bed. It wasn’t characteristic of Jace to sleep so long and so deeply, especially in the presence of so many people in a place that was unfamiliar, but perhaps helping Catarina to heal Magnus and Alec had taken more out of him than Alec had thought. He didn’t think of disturbing Jace’s slumber, though he couldn’t quite rid himself of the feeling that something was definitely not right with his parabatai and Alec was going to get to the bottom of it one way or another.

“Luke’s still sleeping?” he asked, if nothing else just to change the subject and to get his mind off of all his worries that were shouting at him at once.

“Yeah,” Clary said, looking over at the still snoring Luke, sprawled out almost across the length of the uncomfortable wooden chair. “He had a bit too much to drink last night. It was half in celebration and I think half of it was to drown out the feeling of Valentine’s dea—” she bit her lip before she stopped talking suddenly. “Even though their parabatai bond had been severed long ago, I think his death still affected him deep down. He doesn’t want to talk about it and I don’t want to push him.”

Alec knew first-hand the pain that accompanied the loss of a parabatai—of half a person’s soul. He couldn’t imagine how it was for Valentine and Luke in the past to have their bond shattered in such a grotesque way, perhaps it had affected Luke more than Valentine, considering their history but Alec wouldn’t have been surprised if Luke still felt the loss to some extent deep down. He sympathized with Luke more in that moment than he thought was possible.

“He’ll talk about it when he’s ready,” he said. “Just give him time.”

Clary smiled at that. “What about you and Jace?” she asked. “Have you talked?”

Alec could only shake his head. “No. There just hasn’t been time, between when it happened and…” he trailed off but Clary understood what he meant.

“He’ll talk about it when he’s ready,” she said with a cheeky grin. “Just give him time.”

Alec spared a small mocking glare at the teasing. “Touché, Fray,” he said.

Clary gave him a two fingered salute, the grin still wide on her tired face.

She stepped closer to the bed and reached across to place her hand on Magnus’s forehead. “He’s burning up,” she said, her grin immediately dropping.

“Catarina said it’s to be expected considering the severity of his injury,” he said.

Clary exhaled once, spotting the bowl of dirty water on the side table that he’d used to clean Magnus’s face earlier. Without word, she grabbed it and the towel and walked over to the bathroom in the back, emerging a few minutes later with a bowl of fresh cool water and the towel now cleansed of dirt.

“Have you rested at all, Alec?” she asked, placing the bowl back down on the table. Alec’s silence obviously said everything. “Get some rest, I’ll stay with him,” she said.

Alec didn’t answer, he just looked at Magnus’s face, remembering all the mornings waking up to see Magnus’s eyes already open and staring at him, like he’d been doing it for hours while Alec was blissfully unaware. He wished his eyes would open now. He wished Magnus would wake up and be mad at all of them infringing on his space and looking at him without him saying that they could. He wished he could see Magnus’s smile and hear his laugh and listen to him talking for hours about the health benefits of sleeping on Egyptian cotton. He wished Magnus was present in that moment, instead of his being there in the physical sense. He missed Magnus.

“Alec?”

Clary was staring concernedly at him when he turned to look at her. “I’m okay,” he said.

“No, you’re not,” she replied. “Get some rest. I’ll watch over him while you do. Don’t make me get Catarina.”

A chill suddenly ran through his body, almost like Clary had channelled Catarina’s spirit into the room by just mentioning her name.

Reluctantly, Alec relinquished his grip on Magnus’s hand and stood up; feeling every single ache and pain in his body the moment he was upright again. Perhaps Clary was right, a nap wouldn’t hurt.

Perhaps it would be agonizing.

Instead of finding a spot somewhere in the room, Alec walked out into the hall; he didn’t want to leave Magnus but he felt like he needed to step away, even if it was just for a few minutes. He needed to breathe and to gather his thoughts. He hadn’t had a moment to just process everything that had happened, not just the attack that night, but anything that had happened since the moment he woke up that morning.

The living room was dark when he walked out, pulling the door half closed behind him, and after his eyes adjusted to the sudden loss of light, he found Izzy and Raphael on the couch in the same position he’d left them that night. Izzy was awake and leaning against Raphael’s chest, her knees pulled up and the back of her head resting on his shoulder. Her hands were intertwined with his and the other hand weaving comforting patterns in between the bony area of his knuckles.

Izzy’s eyes soon noticed him standing there but she didn’t rush to move out of Raphael’s embrace and Alec didn’t even think to ask her to.

“How’s Magnus?” she asked. Her question caused Raphael to glance up in his direction as well and he looked far more apprehensive by the situation than both Izzy and Alec combined.

“Still unconscious,” he said with a sigh, walking over to the sitting area without making such a big deal about the sight of them cuddling on the sofa.

There were so many things he could have said, most of the words echoing in his mind sounded more like his mother’s voice than his own, but he was just too tired to make it an issue. He wasn’t happy with how the thing between Izzy and Raphael had started; mainly because Izzy hadn’t been in her right mind at the time and neither was he. But they were both clean and sober and Alec thought that Izzy had more than earned the benefit of the doubt and Raphael had shown him that what he felt wasn’t all about the addiction, so Alec thought that it wasn’t his place to say anything beyond what he’d already said. He needed to trust his little sister and he did.

Raphael visibly relaxed when he took a seat on the sofa in the far corner and leaned back heavily in it with a sigh.

“Where’s Catarina?” he asked, looking around at the empty and still apartment and not seeing a hint of her presence.

“She went back to get a change of clothes,” Raphael said, “And apparently some _real_ alcohol. Magnus’s collection was apparently too extravagant for her taste.”

“She said that he was in good hands, so she didn’t have to worry,” Izzy added with a smile. “Speaking of, how are you doing, big brother?”

Alec just sighed. “I’m fine,” he said. He knew that at this point everyone had realized that it was his not so secret code for ‘he was definitely not fine’ but he couldn’t muster the strength to convince her or anyone otherwise. “Clary’s watching him for a while. Jace and Luke still haven’t woken up.”

That piqued Izzy’s curiosity but she didn’t comment.

As if on cue, the door to the bedroom opened slightly and out walked a frumpy, dishevelled Jace; his hair plastered flat on one side of his head and sticking out every which way on the other, rubbing at his sleepy eyes with the balls of his palm.

Alec was on his feet before Jace was half way in the living room, stepping up to him almost immediately and before Jace could even half notice there was someone standing before him, Alec had reached across his shoulders and pulled him into a firm embrace.

“Thank you,” he said into Jace’s ear. “I didn’t get a chance to say that last night so—thank you, my parabatai,” he said sincerely. He was referring to Jace finding them, saving them, saving Magnus and healing both of them more than once; for being there by Alec’s side the whole time— _for not dying and leaving him all alone_. He hoped the unspoken words came across the way he wanted.

It took Jace a moment to gather his thoughts before he returned the embrace wholeheartedly. “It was nothing you wouldn’t have done,” he said earnestly. “It’s nothing you haven’t done a thousand times over. Thank _you_ , for being my parabatai.”

Alec found himself getting lost in the comforting embrace in Jace’s familiar, strong arms. He closed his eyes, just inhaling the scent of Jace that invaded his nostrils, remembering a time in the not too distant past when he would have done anything to be in that position with one of the most important people in his life.

That was until the ancient glass vase on the small table beside the bedroom started to shake in its place all of a sudden without anyone or anything being close to its position. It vibrated for a few seconds; Alec had opened his eyes and was staring at it but the sight wasn’t really registering in his mind. No one else seemed to notice so Alec thought it was just a figment of his imagination.

Until it suddenly exploded, raining water, drenching the table and the carpet underneath, and sending the disintegrated flower petals billowing around from the vibration in the air.

Alec and Jace leapt out of the embrace, Izzy and Raphael were on their feet before any of them could even say anything, until a frantic voice from inside the room was shouting his name.

“ _Alec!_ ”

Alec rushed in immediately, almost tearing the door off its hinges when he flung it open.

Clary was half draped over Magnus in an effort to hold him down. Luke who had at this point woken up to the chaos, was trying to hold down one of Magnus’s arms and Magnus…

It was as if Magnus was seizing on the bed. His chest arched almost completely off the mattress, his head nearly planted into the pillow behind him; his fists clenched painfully, faint red jolts of electricity around his hands were flicking in and out of existence. His eyes were clenched shut—a far cry from the serene expression Alec had seen on his face not a moment before—his mouth downturned in a painful grimace and his teeth bared. 

There was a sound, an almost agonized whimpering rumbling in the back of his throat that Alec could hear even from that distance. It was a terrible and frightening noise to hear.

Suddenly the priceless vases arranged meticulously on the desk by the window shattered to pieces, sending shards of broken glass zipping into the wall. Then the mirror by the makeup table fractured and crackled before tiny web like cracks spread across the surface; it affected the window soon after.

Alec didn’t wait for another thing to get affected by the waves of magic radiating off Magnus’s still unconscious form. He ran over and threw himself onto the bed, using his body weight to try and hold Magnus down all while screaming his name desperately.

Clary was still there, tears streaming down her face. Alec could feel Jace and Raphael’s presence sidling up beside him but he could only concentrate on Magnus.

“Magnus!” he yelled, hoping that his words would somehow manage to break through the haze and pierce through the veil surrounding Magnus. Magnus didn’t seem to be able to hear him so he shouted once more, even louder into his ear. “ _Magnus!_ ”

This time Magnus stilled momentarily, before his eyes flew open and Alec was met by the sight of his cat’s eyes, but unlike all the times he’d seen them in the past, this time, his pupils were dilated, blown up until the gold colour was barely a ring around the black. Alec didn’t know much about cats, but he knew dilated pupils meant that they were angry or felt threatened.

But his eyes were unseeing; open but almost looking straight through him at something that only existed in his delirious state. 

“Magnus?” he tried again, calling his name gently, motioning to everyone else to step back as Magnus slowly started to calm down; his magic was still sparking dangerously at his fingertips. 

Alec saw the exact moment his pupils contracted; narrowing, allowing most of the gold to seep through once again when his eyes finally focused and he found Alec almost immediately.

“Alexander,” he breathed, his voice barely a whisper and his eyes half lidded, though the relief in them was apparent.

It was as if he’d used up what little energy he’d managed to recover in that moment; his eyes rolled back in his head and his eyelids closed and he fell back against the pillow, unconscious.

Alec exhaled and almost collapsed onto the bed himself. 

“Damnit, Magnus. Stressin’ us out like that. It has got to stop,” Luke said as he collapsed heavily onto the seat he’d no doubt jumped up from before he could even fully wake up.

Jace stepped around the bed and circled his arms around Clary, hugging her tightly from behind; she reached up to hold his hand, grasped tightly around her front, leaning her head back against his shoulder.

Alec heard Izzy saying Raphael’s name and turned around just in time to see him stalking out the door; Izzy looking hesitantly between himself, Magnus and Raphael before rushing out to follow him.

All of a sudden there was the familiar swirling of air in the corner by the door before a vortex tore through and out popped Catarina hugging a paper bag full of clinking glass bottles to her chest and a half eaten hot dog in one hand.

“I feel like I just missed out on something monumental happening,” she said with a slight furrow of her brows.

Luke let out a groan but Alec couldn’t help but laugh.

The rest of the day followed a similar trajectory. Magnus would stir suddenly, his brows furrowing in deep concentration and his mouth in a pained grimace, but he never fully woke up. It seemed like he’d be on the brink of consciousness before getting dragged back down to the depths.

Alec tried not to get his hopes up every time he saw the way Magnus’s eyes were shifting behind his closed lids and the way his lips would part as if to say something. The next moment all the little actions would stop and his face would become lax once again.

Clary was a constant presence beside him, as was Catarina. Izzy split her time between being in the bedroom with him and Clary by Magnus’s side and out in the living room with Raphael who hadn’t come back into the room even once after Magnus’s last fit. 

Luke had claimed one of the bottles of alcohol Catarina had brought from her own collection, much to her displeasure, and Alec noticed the way he kept ignoring the calls that were coming into his phone.

Alec didn’t have to see Jace to feel him hovering close by, whether he was in the room with them or out in the hallway with Izzy or brooding in the corner by himself.

Alec was glad that his mom and dad were at the institute with Max and was more concerned than angry when he called to inform them where he was and why he wasn’t going to come into work that day. He knew it was irresponsible of him; it was different for Jace, Clary, and Izzy and it was different before he was Head of the Institute. It wasn’t just responsibility to himself, it was his responsibility to every single Shadowhunter in the New York City area. He had a duty to all of them, not just himself and his problems.

But his mom had assured him that it was okay, and told him to stay as long as he needed to; and even though Alec thought he was beyond longing for his mother’s approval and her praise, hearing her say those words made his heart soar inside his chest.

Catarina popped in and out of the room so often, her sudden appearance would sometimes almost give Alec whiplash. 

Alec didn’t leave Magnus’s side even once after what happened. 

Eventually he could see the light slowly dipping out of existence as a blanket of darkness was cast over the city. 

It had been almost 24 hours since the attack, since the fight; since he almost lost Magnus, bleeding to death in his arms. Alec didn’t think he’d ever be able to forget the memory of that night or the feel of Magnus’s blood seeping through his fingers.

Clary was on the floor by the wall, playing with one of the cats Magnus fed that had made its way into the apartment, so it was just him at Magnus’s side, holding his hand tightly in his grasp. His fever had lessened considerably over the last couple of hours which was at least a bit of positivity they all so desperately needed.

Magnus’s absence was felt by all of them. The room they were in felt just a little bit smaller and a little bit duller. The air felt a little bit staler than when Magnus was there with them, smelling of vintage perfume and countless years of experience and knowledge. Everything just felt less full of _life,_ and it was such a painful and noticeable difference.

Alec wasn’t really paying attention, his eyes staring out at a spot in the corner but not really seeing what his gaze was looking at. He didn’t notice it at first, the way the fingers in his grasp suddenly twitched until they slowly curled around his hand, latching on weakly.

His eyes immediately snapped to attention, turning his head to look down at the occupant of the bed beside him only to find the gorgeous pair of golden cat eyes, the pupils normal, not blown out in fear, the golden hue of his irises shone like the memory of a happier time in his life. Magnus’s eyes were open and he was looking at Alec, not through him seeing a ghost of his past instead of the person sitting in front of him, but actually looking at him; _seeing_ him, _knowing_ that he was there at his side; real and present because Alec loved him and he needed Magnus to know.

There was so many things he wanted to say, so many questions he wanted to ask. He wanted to confess everything, all his feelings and his emotions and his worry, he wanted Magnus to know everything that had been festering inside him for so long; the sadness and the fear he felt when he thought Magnus was dying; his anger at not being able to stop him from getting hurt or help him when he was. He wanted to say everything in all the languages of the world, but instead, he just said;

“Hi.”

But it seemed to be the right thing to say because Magnus levelled him with a weak, half lidded look before a small smile tugged at his lips; his mouth opening slightly and a weak, hoarse voice came out. 

“Hi,” he said, and it was the most beautiful sound Alec had ever heard.


	2. Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was over. They’d won. Valentine was dead and the Downworld was safe once again.
> 
> It was supposed to be over… so how did he end up there – barely able to keep himself conscious and upright even in the position he was in, groveling pathetically on his knees.
> 
> It was supposed to be over, but instead Alexander was going to die. He was going to be ripped apart by the demon barreling towards him and Magnus could do nothing but watch helplessly as another person he loved died before his very eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Happy 2018 to all**

Alexander was going to die. He was going to be ripped apart by the demon barreling towards him and there was nothing Magnus could do.

He tried to get his feet under him, to push himself up; to gather his strength and do something, anything, to prevent his worst nightmare for happening. But he couldn’t, Magnus could barely keep himself conscious and upright even in the position he was in, groveling pathetically on his knees.

How did it end up that way? The fighting was supposed to be over. Valentine was done, the Clave traitors had been dealt with; the Downworlder mutiny had successfully been averted, though Magnus couldn’t deny his shame for having a hand in almost causing the uprising to begin in the first place. But it was done. Valentine was dead, killed by the hands of his own flesh and blood; if that wasn’t karma then Magnus didn’t know what was.

So how did they end up there?

The skittering little buggers Magnus would have had no problem disposing off with just a wave of his hand any other time; why now? Why here?—why them?

There must have been a reason; demons wouldn’t usually attack with this much force without something else being at work behind the scene. The whole thing left nothing but a bitter taste in Magnus’s mouth, but that could have just been the blood he was coughing up.

Alexander was fighting all of them by himself and Magnus had never felt more powerless and useless than he did in that moment. It was a terrible feeling.

But try as he might, he just couldn’t get his feet under him.

It was a physical exhaustion unlike any he’d felt before and he had experienced plenty. Emotional and mental exhaustion; sadness beyond words and devastation; fear and anger bundled up into one overwhelming feeling of just _rage_. But that kind of bone deep tiredness; the inability to lift up his arms or even muster up the strength to gather his magic usefully, the kind where he could barely keep his eyes open much less even think about getting himself upright and keeping himself that way; that was new, and it was a terrible feeling. Especially because he could sense Alexander getting weaker and weaker behind him, his movements were getting much less graceful and precise. He was missing demons at his side that he could have usually killed with his eyes closed. Alexander was also beyond exhausted, and yet he was still there, he was still fighting while Magnus could do nothing but be a useless spectator in the fight. He didn’t think he had ever been more disappointed or frustrated at himself than he was at that moment.

All of a sudden there was a shockwave of demon energy and Magnus could smell the stench of the creature before he could even see its foul presence swooping down on them, fast. Too fast for Alexander to be able to do anything given his state; his entire body covered head to toe in blood, ichor and sweat, exhausted beyond words; he could barely lift his arms up past his shoulders and yet there he was swinging at the demons still unrelenting in their attack. Magnus had never seen a sight more beautiful and awe inspiring in his life, and yet, he could do nothing but watch from the sidelines as Alexander continued to put his body on the line and pushed himself to his absolute limit

Alexander was going to die bloody—like they all did—and Magnus could do nothing.

He could never do anything when it mattered the most; he couldn’t protect his mother from dying, he couldn’t protect Ragnor from dying; he couldn’t stop people from leaving him over and over again even though he would have done absolutely everything and given absolutely anything to make them stay. Ultimately whatever he did was never enough. Everything he _was_ was never enough. _He_ was never enough and deep down he’d accepted that he was never going to be enough.

And then Alexander showed up suddenly in that club and turned his world completely on his head.

It wasn’t going to last, he knew that, he expected that, deep down he was prepared for that; as prepared as he could ever be, but it never made it any easier standing by helpless watching the receding backs of the people he loved disappearing into the horizon.

He was watching Alexander’s back, but it wasn’t receding, it wasn’t disappearing into the distance out of his reach; walking further and further away leaving Magnus in the dust holding the door.

Alexander’s back was right there, within reaching distance but he might as well have been a million miles away because Magnus couldn’t get to him no matter how hard he tried. It was the most terrified he’d ever felt and he’d experienced more than most.

He was staring at Alexander’s back, but it wasn’t going away. _He_ wasn’t going away.

 _‘I can’t live without you,’_ he’d said—what did that even mean? That he couldn’t survive if Magnus wasn’t there to help him out with trouble—if Magnus wasn’t around to keep the wards intact and portal them every which way always? That he couldn’t carry on doing his job if Magnus decided to just stop being available to answer his or any of their calls for assistance.

Or did he mean that he couldn’t stand waking up and not seeing Magnus’s face the first thing he opened his eyes? That he couldn’t bear the thought of going to sleep at night without Magnus’s face being the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes? Did he mean he couldn’t imagine a world where Magnus wasn’t there showering him in kisses as often as compliments and looking at him like his existence was the last beam of the setting sun shooting out across the sky in the horizon? Or did he mean that he couldn’t live without Magnus’s presence in his life, the same way Magnus couldn’t live without his?

Could he have meant that?

Instead of turning his back and walking away, leaving Magnus to stare longingly; mourning all the memories they didn’t get a chance to make, the possibilities of a future he was taking away with him and the chance at happiness that he’d desired for so long; Alexander turned his back and _stayed_ , when he should have walked away; when he should have _run_. Magnus would not have begrudged him that, in fact, Magnus would have given absolutely anything to have him run then, because the beast was barreling down on them, one of his father’s favoured creations for all the havoc and destruction they reined.  But Alec was unmoving, steadfast and strong even though he was nearly dead on his feet.

And yet Magnus was on his knees, groveling like a wretch. Just earlier that day he’d called himself the High Warlock of Brooklyn, but look at him now. It might have been karma for the way he’d unfairly treated Alexander after their heartbreaking yet mutual estrangement. He found himself falling back on old, _bad_ , habits and Alexander became the victim of his unfair and uncalled for bitterness.

Maybe this was his punishment for all the sins of his past—they were many—and he was doomed to keep on staring, reaching out at the back of people he loved walking away from him.

But Alexander wasn’t walking away.

And he was going to die because of it.

Then all of a sudden all he saw was red; blood red, clouding his vision and invading his senses. He could smell the stench of blood and the way it reeked like burned metal. It wasn’t his blood that he smelled.

It was Alexander’s.

He could smell the poison, he could hear the screeching, he could feel the vibration of Alexander’s heart thundering in his chest, but that could have been his own. He could feel the heat of the fire lapping at his consciousness. He could hear the cackling of voices; a myriad of them all combined into one echoing, thundering noise inside his brain. He could feel the palms of his hands getting hotter and hotter like his blood was boiling under his skin. His hands should have been charred and blistered – seared down to the bone, but he felt no pain because that fire was a part of him, it always was and it always will be, but over time he’d gotten used to ignoring the seductive voice calling his name with such familiarity.

The voice used to be his mother’s; the soft lulling tones that sang him to sleep at night. The older he grew and the more he began to forget what his mother’s voice used to sound like, it morphed into a voice that was more of the same and yet so different at the same time. The familiar enchanting purr that had the ability to make him do absolutely everything and Magnus did nearly everything for that voice—but he never accepted—and so Camille’s voice, twisted and mutilated, sounding like a low guttural snarl coming from a throat choking on wet coagulated blood would curse at him and spit at him and threaten everything he held dear.

But in that dark alley that night, with his energy completely drained and his magic depleted; with his barriers down and walls unprotected, he came to hear the voice again. This time, the voice reached deep inside his soul with a poisoned claw and grabbed onto his weakness; it tore through his already damaged barriers and latched on.

This time Magnus couldn’t turn away, he couldn’t pretend to be unhearing, he couldn’t focus on anything else besides the soft, deep rumble and the hint of the New York accent and the way he would sometimes skip the last syllables in a word in a way that was distinct only to him.

Instead of his mother’s soft soothing voice reassuring him or Camille’s seductive purr alluring him, this time the voice said only one thing in the voice that was so familiar and yet so unfamiliar.

 _‘Magnus,’_ Alexander’s voice said, ‘ _Will you watch me die?’_

And that was all it took for Magnus to let it in.

Magnus could hear the voice in his head howling with laughter, insolent and vindictive; cocky yet gleeful, but he could only concentrate on the overpowering ruby tint that now clouded his vision. He could feel the familiar tingle of magic accruing at his fingertips, growing larger and larger and more concentrated, swirling with tinges of pitch black that radiated off his very being. It wasn’t just his magic—the magic he kept locked away deep inside himself never to see the light of day. It was magic being channeled to him from a place far beyond reality and human comprehension; from a place he’d rather forget even existed and the ties he’d sooner severe with his own two hands.

And yet there he was accepting the power like it was his for the taking; like it belonged to him.

 _‘Magnus, will you let me die?’_ Alexander’s voice said again.

And in that moment, Magnus no longer saw red; he could only see pitch black as everything in his surrounding melted into nothing until it was only him, Alexander and the demon, before the power exploded from deep inside him, eradicating every single Shax demon within a hundred feet of their position.

Magnus got to his feet and without even thinking about it, flicked his wrist barely a fraction and he felt rather than saw Alexander’s confused, pained yelp as he was flung through the air and crashed into the wall at the far end of the alley. He was down and he was unmoving, but he was alive and breathing and in that moment, that was all that mattered.

The Asmodei was close; Alexander’s blade had impaled it through the leg and already the limb was burning away like cinder ash in a fireplace. The demon was dying quick but not quick enough.

Magnus didn’t feel the talons when it pierced him through the chest, ripped through his insides, sending them both of them soaring deeper into the mouth of the alley and impaling him against the far end wall. Everything happened barely in a split second, all it took was a pulsating wave of magic before the already disintegrating demon perished in a blistering fiery burst.

But just before it disintegrated, he could hear the sound of an almost feminine voice laughing, coming from deep inside the demon’s fiery depths, her voice both melodic and gravely; the language she spoke wasn’t one he was familiar with, and Magnus was familiar with most. It was ancient, long forgotten, or not spoken at all, only by those who already spoke it. It was the language of the greater demons and yet Magnus could somehow understand it rumbling inside his head like the growling of a beast.

He could hear it spitting wrath and fury when it said, _‘Nephilim spilled the blood of my child; I will have blood as recompense, W_ _ǽ_ _rloga, Child of Asmodeus.’_

And then there was nothing.

No sound, no sight, no hearing; no nothing, only the feel of his heart pounding against his ribcage and the blood he could already feel backing up out of his damaged lung and into his windpipe. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t inhale oxygen into his body but there was no pain and Alexander was alive and for that moment, that was enough.

Everything after that happened as if Magnus was watching it and listening to it from deep under water; except that the water was a river of blood and he was drowning in it.

His mother’s body was drenched in blood much like that and for a moment, Magnus was nine years old again; he’d just seen his mother dead and his step father’s fury and he’d never felt more terrified in his life, but then Alexander all of a sudden appeared in his periphery and Magnus couldn’t keep his smile at bay even when his gaze slipped from Alexander’s beautiful concerned face and the dirty, unyielding ground came rushing up to greet him. He tried to prepare himself for the impact, not that he could have, his descent was too quick and the ground was immalleable; he couldn’t even muster the energy to bring his arms up to protect himself—did he even have arms still attached to his shoulders? He couldn’t feel anything other than frigid numbness.

But the ground stopped before it reached him, about a foot away from his face and Magnus could do nothing but stare dumbfounded at the filth and the grime on the stone pavement so close in his sight, and that was when the pain all of a sudden flared up.

It was like fire in his chest, raging through his insides; intense and agonising. It was like thousands of little needles lining his chest cavity, stabbing into his lungs every time he tried to take a breath. It was like inhaling burning lava through a straw while he was trying not to choke on his own blood.

It was like dying, or what Magnus assumed dying felt like; it was always such an abstract concept to him. People died, yes, but he knew _he_ wouldn’t, and to suddenly find himself in that position; dying, choking on his own bodily fluids, feeling his insides burning and the blistering hot blood trickling down his arm and through his fingers; feeling it being pumped out of his body where it belonged, onto the cold pavement under his knees with each waning pump of his heart. It was an odd sensation.

Was this what people truly felt before they died—a bitter sense of disappointment and frustration instead of fear and sadness?

That was the only thing Magnus could think in that moment. He was dying. His body had failed him, or rather; he had failed to protect his body. He’d been stupid and careless and he let himself get caught completely off guard. Nothing in his four hundred years of experience had been of use. He let lesser beings get the better of him. He was going to die and it was disappointing and messy and it was ugly and he’d never been angrier at himself than he was in that moment.

But then all of a sudden Alexander was in his line of sight once again. His chest had exploded with pain and he heard himself cry out without even realizing the sound had left his lips but Alexander was there and Magnus remembered that he hadn’t walked away even when he could have. He turned his back to Magnus the way everyone in his life always did but it wasn’t the same. Alexander wasn’t the same. He was never the same. He was an anomaly that fell into Magnus’s lap and for some reason _stayed_.

He stayed when he could have left.

He stayed when he _should_ have left.

Magnus found solace in the fact that at the end, he died to protect the person who meant most to him. He’d failed to do so, so many times in his life, in so many instances in his history. He’d watched the people he loved most walk away from him. He’d let people he cared about die bloody, but at the end of his long life, he died to protect Alexander and somehow, he was okay with that.

Alexander was speaking but Magnus couldn’t concentrate on anything else besides his eyes. Alexander spoke more with his gaze than he ever did with his words; it was a quality that was the most endearing yet the most frustrating because Magnus could listen to Alexander speak for hours, and yet, Magnus was always the one saying the most. But Alexander always spoke with the intensity in his eyes; the sparkling hazel that would occasionally bleed into the mesmerizing green; Magnus would always find himself getting lost in Alexander’s gaze just as he did in that moment. He could barely inhale oxygen into his body and the flames of agony raging through his chest were both frigid in his bones and like lapping fire in his veins.

Alexander was speaking and Magnus tried to listen because he didn’t speak often, but when he did, he’d only say what truly mattered and that’s what made Magnus love him so much.

In that instance, Magnus realized that it was true. He did love Alexander. Alexander said those words more than once, and he’d reciprocated more than once but there was still a small piece of his soul that kept questioning whether it was true; whether Alexander really did love him, or more importantly, whether Magnus really truly loved him back.

He’d loved many people, many times in his life, and every time they left they took a little bit of his love with them until a point where Magnus wasn’t sure whether he had any more love left to give.

But he did, and he gave it to Alexander with the hope that this time, his love would mean as much to the other person as their love meant to him.

Magnus was used to protecting others; it came with the territory. He was used to people needing his help, needing his magic, needing his knowledge and his riches; needing absolutely everything he had to give except his love. But Alexander didn’t want anything besides his love, besides _him_.

 _‘I can’t live without you,’_ he’d said and Magnus wanted to say _‘I don’t want to live without you,’_ in return but he could no longer find his voice.

Alexander was dipping in and out of focus; his beautiful eyes wide and teary, Magnus wanted to tell him not to cry, but he couldn’t find the words. He couldn’t remember how to speak. He could hear the sound of a voice calling him from the darkness; calling him a name that wasn’t his, a name that didn’t belong to him; he was Magnus and he would always be Magnus.

His mother used to call him a different name; his old name, the one he could no longer even remember. Sometimes he could still even hear her words; _‘Tidur, anakku sayang,’_ that she’d say before putting him to sleep at night; before she realized what he was; before her care turned to fear; before her love turned to disgust; before he could only remember her words dripping with venom and her voice distorted and mutilated; back when he could hear her words resounding like a song in his ear and the way she used to roll her r’s; back when she was _mother_ instead of another nightmare that plagued his sleep.

But the way Alexander called his name; the way he said it almost with reverence, like he took much pleasure in the way the name rolled off his tongue. It wasn’t like the way Camille called his name, like the name belonged to her and she’d say it with a seductive purr, almost in a sing-song voice, like she was both summoning him and teasing him at the same time. It wasn’t like the way Catarina called his name, like it was both a source of fondness and a source of great frustration at the same time; the same way she’d say Ragnor’s name in the exact same tone.

But that was back then, Catarina hadn’t mentioned the name Ragnor in a while and Magnus didn’t deign to remind her. It was still a topic of great sadness and tragedy for the both of them and most of the time, Magnus had to force himself to stop drinking at the point where he’d almost forget that he used to have a friend named Ragnor.

But the way Alexander said the name Magnus was like the name was meant to be said by him in that tone, with that voice and the way he was always so light on the M; like he was as fond of saying the name as Magnus was of hearing him say it.

He wanted to hear him say it one last time, but he could no longer hear.

There was only darkness.

\--

The thing Magnus remembered the most clearly were the mosquitoes. There were always so many come the dusk, just as the light of the setting sun fully disappeared behind the hills in the distance, plunging the paddy fields and the little ramshackle huts scattered through the little village landscape into darkness. When the faintest of lights would shine out the windows from the oil lamps the villagers would burn inside their homes, and the distant crowing of the birds flying overhead and the mooing of the buffalos that plowed the paddy fields from their shed, resting for the night, would sound in the background.

Magnus always hated the mosquitoes but he always tried to not kill them regardless, up until the point when being in the immediate vicinity of him killed them anyway and that was _before_ his mother realized what he was. Perhaps in a way, it had been the contributing factor to her realization.

Then she died; she killed herself in her own bed because she could no longer stand the shame of being responsible for bringing a monster into the world.

An abomination, she said. _Malapetaka_ was the word she used; _anak sial_ was what she called him. He would bring on the end of the world, she’d mutter in a hysterical rage and he could do nothing but pull his knees closer to his chest and continue listening to her tirade from his hiding place in the dirt and the sand under the house, leaning against one of the wooden stilts and watching her shadow walking back and forth above his head through the cracks in the ratty floorboards.

But he didn’t cry.

He never cried except once and he vowed to never cry again.

But then in this memory; the twisted nightmare of his past that he found himself reliving, all of a sudden his step father was standing in front of him, yelling at him, cursing at him in a language he’d long pretended not to know and Magnus became _so angry_ he saw only red. His step father had his hands on him, holding him down, touching him; his skin cold to the touch almost like ice. Magnus hated the cold; he always did because that was the clearest memory he had of how he felt on the inside for decades; before Catarina, before Ragnor…

Before Alexander.

He knew an Alexander once and the onslaught of memories slammed into him like a battering ram; a sheepish smile; gorgeous hazel eyes opening slowly at the dawn, framed by a halo of shimmering gold, a grin; a head of tousled black hair and gentle hands, calloused and strong, reaching out to caress his face. But he blinked and once again it was his step father’s face bearing down on him, his expression ugly, twisted in rage. His hands were still on him but they weren’t just his hands, they were many hands clawing at him, tearing at his limbs, scratching his skin and ripping him apart and he found himself too powerless to fight back. He couldn’t lift his arms up to resist or to struggle, he couldn’t inhale oxygen into his lungs; it was like his chest was on fire and the oxygen was scorched ash, burning away like a rotten limb. It was a leg first and the sound of a terrible screech assailing his senses and the stench of a thousand corpses condensed into one horrid, mutated creature.

Alexander was going to die bloody and Magnus was too powerless to save him.

But he had. Alexander was alive. He killed the demon. He killed all the demons, even the one that raged within him; the one who sang to him with his mother’s voice and the one who seduced him with Camille’s; the one who spoke to him softly in Alexander’s voice, with his beautiful, kind face always hovering somewhere in the back of his mind like a fond memory that constantly lingered but was always just out of reach.

But this time Alexander wasn’t asking him a question, he wasn’t asking whether Magnus would sit back and watch him die. He didn’t ask Magnus to let him in. He didn’t ask Magnus to say yes. He said _, ‘please…let us,’_ over and over again with a voice that was too raw; a voice that was dripping with too much emotion; a voice that had seen tears and the sound of sobbing far too recently.

So Magnus listened this time. He was too tired, too drained. He was too powerless and he wanted to just lie back down and do nothing; he wanted to be nothing, just the way he felt on the insides too many times for too many years.

Alexander’s voice was too soothing and too close; the warm droplet that splashed onto his face felt too real and Magnus just surrendered to the darkness until he became nothing. He spared a small smile to the shadows before he was enveloped and then there was only _pain_.

Magnus had felt pain before, but it was a different sort of pain; the kind that couldn’t truly be healed by magic, only by time; the pain that always seemed to linger somewhere in his periphery like a shadow.

But even compared to that, there was little in comparison to the kind of all-encompassing sort of agony that all of a sudden assailed his senses. Once in a while for what seemed like an eternity, Magnus could perhaps forget that it was there for a moment’s respite. Other times the pain would come at him like a beast, unwilling to be ignored, up in his face like the hurt had just been inflicted. It was like the beast that raged within him, threatening to tear him apart from the inside out, clawing at his insides and tearing at his organs and burning the tissue under his skin.

It was agony.

It was terror.

It was like dying, over and over again for eternity and in that moment, Magnus actually wished for death.

But death never came, as it would never come for him. He’d been turned away over and over again, left at the door by everyone he loved and by death itself and it was an agony that he knew he’d never truly be free of.

But he could see eyes looking at him through the darkness and he latched onto the memory; he latched onto the voice; the sound of a woman’s voice, older and weary, singing a sweet tune in a language he couldn’t remember; the voice that mutated into that of a Siren, as beautiful as it was dangerous but he always found himself floating closer and closer to that voice no matter how much his heart warned him against it, no matter how much it pulled him away; the voice that morphed again and again; a woman’s voice, strong and steadfast and familiar; straightforward and no-nonsense; a man’s voice; perpetually pernickety with a soothing accent; a woman’s voice, begging for help and a little girl’s, scared and confused; and thousands of voices he’d heard through the centuries, every gender and countless languages and in the end it all faded away into silence but for a single, deep voice with a hint of a New York accent saying his name;

“Magnus.”

And then there was nothing.

\--

Slowly; painfully slow, his senses started returning to him, one by one. Sound and smell and taste; everything was far too sweet and his surrounding was far too loud.

He remembered feeling the magical currents raging through his body, but it was like it happened in a nightmare. Like it happened to another person’s body and he’d been around, hovering like a spectator, helpless and unable to stop it. Unable to stop _himself_. It was his body and it was his magic, but at the same time, it wasn’t _his_ magic. It was remnants of a power that didn’t belong to him, that didn’t have any business being in his body. He’d accepted the power; he’d let it in. He allowed the darkness to course through his veins and he knew, in a bitter part of his heart that fragments of that power would be left behind, latching onto his soul. He could feel it there, hovering, tainting him; bleeding into the bright spots of his mind and his spirit.

But there was also a darkness that hovered close; it wasn’t a darkness inside him, but a darkness that was familiar nonetheless; one that hung in the air around him, hissing at him, spitting at him, growling at him in a language he understood once when it spoke into his mind. It wasn’t his darkness, but the darkness was close to him and he could feel it bleeding into the air like a cancer.

All he could remember was the dark; all he could see was the dark; that, and the silence. It was suffocating and it was lonely and it was terrifying, but it was the pain that kept him grounded.

There were hands on him; there were spirits shining brightly around him. There were sounds of footsteps walking around and the hushed whispers of voices that he knew but couldn’t place. He was lonely, but he wasn’t alone, that was the immediate first thing he realized.

The pain not only kept him grounded, but it also kept him rooted in place; moving hurt, breathing hurt, thinking hurt, just existing hurt, like his entire body was one giant festering wound, but there were hands on his and somewhere in the darkest, most jaded part of his soul, he realized that he knew who those hands belonged to.

They were strong, the fingers were long and calloused, but they were warm and they were familiar and they were the hands that once upon a time stroked the side of his face with such gentleness that it unknowingly unlocked a part of his soul that he’d kept locked away for centuries.

Alexander… that was his name. That was the person those hands belonged to.

But Alexander wasn’t there, was he? He was… somewhere else—somewhere in a distant place, in a distant memory out of reach. Magnus could still feel the tip of fingers brushing against the hem of Alexander’s jacket. The jacket that smelled like leather and blood and sweat and metal and Alexander’s familiar musky scent. The jacket that had been torn to pieces and drenched in blood and grime and ichor. The jacket that he wore when he died, when the demon tore him in half; when the demon flayed him like cattle; when the demon ripped through him with its claws laced with poison and its teeth dripping with venom.

When Magnus threw him against the wall, out of its path; when Alexander hit the stone wall with the thump and a painful moan.

When he landed on the ground, hurt, but alive.

Alexander was alive, Magnus had to remind himself. He’d saved him, and the thought brought on an overwhelming sense of relief Magnus didn’t know he could ever have felt again.

Alexander was alive. That was all that mattered.

The ground wasn’t stained red with his blood and that was all that mattered.

 _Crimson_ , Ragnor would have said, as he’d always been a stickler for the details, as Magnus himself was, but seldom in regards to colour. To Ragnor blue was not blue when it was azure or teal and crimson and maroon and burgundy and carmine were not the same thing. To Magnus green was green and blue was blue and red was red. The only thing that truly mattered was how good it looked on him.

But _hazel_ – hazel was a distinctive colour in its own special category.

 _Semantics_ , Ragnor would have scoffed with a derisive eye-roll and Magnus would have either argued about Ragnor being a pot calling the kettle black, or he would have shooed him off to go look at one of his gaudy paintings.

It was weird for a colour to bring on such an intense feeling of comfort inside him, especially for one that wasn’t even really a colour. Was it brown or green? That was always the pressing question; brown or green? Green or brown? Eventually Magnus realized that it didn’t matter because hazel came to represent just one thing most of all.

“Alexander.”

Seeing the way his eyes widened, the way the green was overlapping the brown in a way that almost made it sparkle; seeing the relief that flooded his expression and the way he almost exhaled the name when it came tumbling from his lips, it filled Magnus with such a feeling of warmth and a sense of relief that he found himself unable to do anything other than stare.

“ _Magnus,_ ” came the almost hopeful cry as Alexander rushed to his side. “How are you feeling?” he asked, taking a seat at Magnus’s side and quickly reaching for his hand.

Magnus didn’t really have time to process what was happening; he could barely recall what had actually happened, but Alexander was there at his side, his worry as apparent as the redness of his eyes so Magnus latched onto him with as much desperation in return. “I’ve felt better,” he said, “I’ve probably looked better too.”

Alexander smiled at that and Magnus didn’t think he’d ever seen a sight more gorgeous. “You look absolutely perfect,” he said.

Once again Alexander proved that he didn’t have to speak often to be able to say the things Magnus wanted and needed to hear the most. “You on the other hand,” he found himself saying, “Look dreadful, my love. When was the last time you slept?”

“I think you slept enough for the both of us,” said Alexander. His tone turning bittersweet which sobered Magnus up instantly. “It’s been almost a week since the ambush,” he explained and all of a sudden Magnus could see every second of it stacked up high on Alexander’s tired shoulders.

“You’ve been here the entire time?” he found himself asking before he could even stop himself.

“Of course,” Alexander said, like he was offended that Magnus even thought to ask that question. “We all have,” he added.

“ _We_?” For a split second Magnus couldn’t even begin to fathom who ‘we’ could possibly be, before there was a high pitched squeal sounding from the door and all of a sudden he felt a body – and then a second – almost barreling into him. It jarred the part of his chest that had felt strangely numb; causing him to wince when the ache came like a firecracker burst and an involuntary pained gasp escaped his lips. The figures half sprawled over him immediately stilled in place.

“Sorry,” said Clary and Isabelle immediately, looking up at him concernedly and half guilty. Magnus hated being the reason for that look so he quickly reached over to cup both of them by the side of their cheeks, running his thumb across the length of their cheekbones in a reassuring manner.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, my dears,” he said, and felt the warmness spreading through his insides when Clary and Isabelle both smiled at him.

It was an unnerving feeling, but not one that he disliked. It felt good to be wanted and to be missed.

He glanced over at Alexander who had straightened up and was standing back, giving Clary and Isabelle room at Magnus’s side, his expression melancholic almost, pensive, but he looked up when he sensed Magnus’s eyes on him and the smile that spread across his face then was worth all the precious stones in the world.

It felt strange being present and in the moment then, seeing the people who would walk in and out of his room – something he frowned on most of the time – from Clary and Isabelle to Jace and Luke to Raphael. Raphael took a bit of coaxing before he would even enter the room fully; much less actually approach the bed. Magnus couldn’t really blame him and he didn’t. The relationship between him and Raphael wasn’t something that could be explained simply. He considered Raphael almost like a son, but not really in a parent-child sort of way, not the way the Nephilim treated their offspring and definitely not the way mundanes did. But when Raphael made his way into the room, for the first time that day barren of visitors sans Alexander – who all of a sudden remembered that he was needed in the kitchen for some inexplicable reason – his steps strangely slow and cautious and his eyes looking at anything and everything except in Magnus’s direction, Magnus knew that something wasn’t right and deep down he knew what it was.

After all he’d felt the same kind of fear many times through the centuries.

The very real fear of loss.

But unlike his own experiences with it in the past, he was still there; he was still around; alive and kicking. He could still reach out and embrace Raphael when he buried his face in his shoulder and latched on like he was afraid of letting go; he could still hold on just as tightly with the kind of sympathy born from familiarity and experience, the kind he wouldn’t wish even on his worst enemies. He understood what Raphael was feeling and he knew that Alexander empathized with him the same way and that was why he stepped out, giving Raphael and his moment of vulnerability the privacy he would never have asked for. Magnus appreciated it on Raphael’s behalf just as much.

It was _weird_ , to put it simply, everything that happened to him over the course of the last… couple of weeks? Sometimes it actually felt like he was on the outside looking in at all the people who kept passing through his life _and_ his room. Clary and Isabelle were slightly less befuddling because he could somehow understand what they felt and the way they thought; they were more similar to him in that sense than most people. He understood holding on to a loved one and wanting to be near them, wanting to hold them close and in that he understood Clary and Isabelle the best.

The fact that he was the focus of their worry and their concern was something he understood maybe a little less. After all, he was more experienced being the worry-er, than he was being on the receiving end.

But between Clary and Isabelle and Luke and Raphael and the oddly absent Simon, Magnus didn’t know where to even begin focusing his confusion. It was something he could safely say that he’d never truly experienced in his four-hundred years of life. Sure he had people love him, or a version of love that felt good enough at the time; he had people care about him – perhaps the kind he’d come to associate as care because that was the only kind he ever really knew. But the kind of selfless love and care and worry that he found himself being the subject of… that was slightly more bewildering.

At first he thought that he was still stuck in some sort of dreamland, a fantasy he’d created to compensate for everything he wished he had in life, but the dream continued without a record-scratch and a fade-away to black, and at some point Magnus was forced to come to the realization that somehow this was actually reality; that this was actually real and it wasn’t happening just inside his own head. He was forced to realize that these people were actually there, they were real just like he was and their care and their concern and their… _love? –_ was actually directed towards him and it didn’t fail to give him pause every time the thought of if crossed his mind.

And then there was Catarina.

Catarina was his oldest and closest friend in the world – really the only one left – so to see her by his side when he opened his eyes, her eyes sharp, almost a furious glare, really wasn’t the most unexpected thing. She’d gone off on him then, her grief half concealed and buried under a thick layer of anger that he could see right through so he just sat back and accepted it silently, it was the least he could do after what he put her through after all.

But when it was all said and done, after Catarina had released all the frustration and the fear that was in her heart, that was when her real emotions shined through and she frowned and hugged him and held him the way he hadn’t been held in centuries; not since he was eight years old and his mother didn’t yet look at him like he was her biggest regret.

Magnus finally let his tears fall the way they hadn’t fallen in centuries. Catarina just held him close but said nothing because it wasn’t her words that Magnus needed; it was just _her_.

Alexander on the other hand was an entity entirely of his own spectacular merit and amazingness. Magnus really had no words to truly describe Alexander to the common folk.

Alexander was special; the kind of person that comes into someone’s life only _once_ and somehow, for some reason he ended up destined to be in Magnus’s. More so than that, he chose to do so; he chose to stay when so many in his place would have left, when so many _had_ left and Magnus didn’t think there were words in the common tongue or otherwise to describe just how much it meant to him. But somehow with Alexander, he knew he didn’t have to. With Alexander he didn’t have to say much and he had even less to prove; he didn’t have to constantly prove his love because Alexander just knew. The only thing he had to do was love Alexander as much as Alexander loved him in return, and to Magnus nothing in the world was easier than that.

Alexander was easy to love; he might be hard to understand or get a grasp on a lot of the times, but to love him was the easiest. Magnus couldn’t tell what he was thinking most of the time but he could always tell what he was feeling, especially when those feelings were directed towards Magnus – it was easier to see than to believe sometimes but Magnus was trying just like Alexander was trying. Their very relationship was a poster child for trial-and-error – a Shadowhunter and a Downworlder – more so than that, a warlock (and some might argue, _the_ warlock) who really could have ever imagined? Certainly not Magnus and certainly not the Clave.

But Alexander had just taken it all in his stride. It wasn’t easy, as it would never be easy, but Alexander stayed when he could have left. It would have been so much easier on him and on the both of them if he had. But one thing Magnus and Alexander both had in common was the fact that they were never about taking the easy way out, that’s what made them the kind of leaders they were – the fact that they didn’t easily back down. And if Magnus wasn’t the kind to back down in his beliefs and his life, he definitely wasn’t about to start doing it in his relationships, especially when it was obvious, perhaps for the first time, that the person he loved, loved him back just as much. If that wasn’t reason enough, then nothing else would ever be.

It was him and Alexander in bed that morning. Everyone else had finally left his apartment at his insistence. After the week they had, Magnus knew he owed them all breakfast every day for all eternity.

He could see the beam of the dawn illuminating the tops of the buildings outside his window. He was awake, as he’d been for at least a couple of hours. Really, he’d probably slept enough to last him a century over the last week or so and as it stood, there were far more interesting things to focus his attention on in that moment than boring old sleep.

Alexander was asleep beside him, his eye closed and his lashes thick and dark and almost brushing against the highest point of his cheekbones, one hand tucked under his cheek. Magnus couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight.

He’d known many Shadowhunters through his life and he always thought he’d had them all down pegged: a militaristic organization of mindless followers, creating havoc in the name of order and imposing their superiority at every turn. The last word Magnus would ever use to describe a Shadowhunter would have been _vulnerable_ , but that was exactly what Alexander was at that moment; exposed, unprotected, with his barriers completely down, showing the kind of trust in Magnus that he ever only showed his own kind, perhaps not even then.

Magnus found himself reaching over and with the softest touch, running his thumb across the side of Alexander’s cheek. He wasn’t all that surprised when the briefest contact caused him to stir. His brows furrowing for a split-second before his eyes actually opened. The moment his gaze finally focused and he found Magnus staring back at him, he smiled. It was just a small quirk of the lips, but to Magnus it was the most gorgeous sight to behold.

“Hi,” he said, almost a whisper. His hand trailing down Alexander’s torso to rest on the curve of his waist, causing him to shudder slightly.

“Hi,” said Alexander, his voice slightly hoarse with sleep. “How are you feeling?” he asked and Magnus couldn’t help but smile at the question.

“Much better now that I’ve seen your smile,” he said.

“I’m serious, Magnus,” said Alexander with a small pout although he would undoubtedly deny it being such.

“So am I, Alexander,” he replied, “You just have the innate ability to make everything better.”

Alexander turned silent then, his eyes darkening slightly which made Magnus a little concerned.

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly.

 “What? Why? You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for,” he said, wracking his brain for anything that would have caused the sudden apology.

Alexander didn’t answer for a while and Magnus could feel his concern rising.

“I’m sorry you got so hurt,” he said suddenly, “I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to protect us both. It was my job and I failed at it. I should have been stronger or faster or –”

“Oh, Alexander,” said Magnus, raising a hand up to stop him, reaching out to cup the side of his face. “You didn’t fail at _anything_. You protected us both by yourself for longer than you should have had to. I was the one who should be sorry; for not being stronger, for letting you shoulder the bulk of everything, for not being able to protect us both. You were the strongest, most magnificent sight I’ve ever seen in my life, Alexander; we’re both only alive because of you. Sure, we didn’t come out of if completely unscathed, but the alternative would have been… even more unspeakable. So… please don’t apologize. Please don’t think you failed in _any_ way. We’re both alive because of _you_.”

Alexander stayed silent through Magnus’s entire speech, gazing at him intently with his gorgeous eyes.

“Plus, I heard chicks dig scars,” added Magnus after a while, “I wonder if it applies to _incredibly_ hot, tall, dark and handsome Shadowhunters as well.”

Alexander’s frown morphed into a smiled then, which then grew into a wide grin that Magnus would never get tired of looking at.

“I suppose I really have no other choice in the matter,” said Alexander, “I’ll just have to learn to live with it.”

Magnus couldn’t help it, he laughed at that. The sudden jolt was painful on his body but the laughter itself was like a balm on his soul, even more so when Alexander joined him soon after.

It felt good being alive. Magnus didn’t think there would come a time where he could truly believe those words in his heart again.

 

* * *

 

**The End**

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, I doubt that they would be using Bahasa Indonesia as we know it in the sixteen hundreds, therefore the Indonesian phrases Magnus would actually know from his childhood would most likely be of the language they spoke back then, instead of the Indonesian language that’s used today.
> 
> That said; I’m doing it anyway.
> 
> The direct translation of _‘malapetaka’_ means disaster, or something bad that befalls something, like in a biblical sense. It means the same thing in both Indonesian and Malay (which is my first language so I’m taking more from that instead of actual Indonesian). The online dictionary translates _‘sial’_ as stupid or dumbass, but that’s not quite right; words in Malay—and I assume in Indonesian as well—don’t really have one particular meaning, it can mean a variety of things depending on how you choose to use it. As with the above word, it can also be used to describe something terrible in the biblical sense. My understanding of the words sial is something more along the lines of unlucky, not as is someone who is unlucky, but as in someone/something that brings bad luck to others. _Anak sial_ means a child that brings bad luck, or something like a bad omen when used in this case.
> 
> _‘Tidur, anakku sayang’ ‘sleep, my beloved child.’_
> 
> So yeah, that’s a 101 on Bahasa Melayu/Indonesia that you didn’t ask for, hope you enjoyed it and the story.
> 
>  **Wǣrloga:**  
>  traitor, oath-breaker, liar  
> Declension of wærloga (weak)  
>  **English:** warlock

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr @[reivenesque](http://reivenesque.tumblr.com/)


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